Unkept
by chalkyhands
Summary: Set in some approximation of AtS S5, Buffy and Spike have a hopeful reunion in the midst of a mission. They depart with the promise of a future of some sort together. However, hope turns to dismay when Buffy receives word of Spike's sudden death.
1. Chapter One

Buffy fell back against the mattress, gasping for breath. Spike, likewise, collapsed at her side.

"Wow," she said while staring at the ceiling.

"You're telling me."

This hadn't been on her agenda for this mission. It was a slayer mission - not a 'meet your old lover and have sex with him' mission. But then with the meeting and the sparkage and the bed sitting there, waiting, and then her clothes decided they needed to be off her.

She couldn't regret a second of it, though. Her intimate parts were still tingling.

Spike's placed a hand on her stomach. "This alright?"

She nodded. "Yeah. Just...not expected."

Spike shifted so he propped himself up on his elbow. Buffy tore her gaze away from the popcorn textured ceiling to look at him.

"For one, I thought you were dead," she said. "Which, by the way, still pissed that you never called me."

"So noted."

"For another, I just thought that...," She stopped herself. She wasn't sure if that would be a tactful thing to say.

He finished for her. "You thought you were over me."

"Well, I _did_ think you were dead and dusty," she admitted.

He hesitated. "But it was good?"

"_So_ good." Buffy's eyes closed as she remembered how good it was. Spike's thumb stroked her abdomen.

"So, then. What now?"

That was the question, wasn't it? Spike was working with Angel; she worked with the slayers. By coincidence, they'd managed to both get the same mission. Now, in theory, they needed to figure out who would get the scrolls (she would) and then...go their separate ways.

She'd go back to England, and he'd go to LA.

Separate.

First things first. "I get the humanity scrolls."

"The _Humaneia_ Scrolls are going back to LA with me, sorry. I don't need Angel busting my ass about coming back empty-handed."

"Don't you think you owe me for the whole not calling me after you came back thing?" Buffy gave him her best wide-eyed look. "Besides, Giles, _really_ wants it - "

Spike snorted. "Yeah. And I'm always up for catering to _Giles_."

Oooh. Misstep. Buffy had forgotten that Giles and Spike had ended on bad terms. She frowned.

"Compromise," Spike said. "I take the scrolls back to LA. We have a guy who can make a copy of them. We'll send those to you."

"I'll have to ask my people. I don't know if they need the information or the scrolls, themselves."

"Yeah, I dunno, either. I'm just a gopher on this one."

"Same."

Then they were smiling at each other like lovestruck teenagers. Buffy wasn't sure how that had happened.

"I missed you so much," she said.

He traced a finger down her cheek. "I never stopped thinking about you."

"It's not possible to..."

"To?"

"Well, for you to - maybe - come back with me?"

Spike tilted his head. "What are you asking?"

"I think that's pretty obvious," Buffy said. She grabbed his hand and held it to her chest. "I want you with me."

"No small request."

"I know that."

He considered her quietly. Buffy wondered what he saw.

Then a cellphone went off. _His_ cellphone. Buffy waited to see what he would do. She hoped he would ignore it. He didn't.

With an apologetic grin, he rolled over and reached down for his jeans. He extracted the phone from his pocket and stabbed the 'talk' button.

"Yeah?"

Buffy lay back. She could distantly hear a man's voice on the other end. Three guesses as to who _that_ was.

"Got caught up in something. You know how it goes." Spike glanced at Buffy. "Listen, might need a few more days on the scrolls."

That was a lie. They had the scrolls.

"Just cause. Things are more complicated than that."

He was staring at her then. Buffy realized he wasn't _just_ talking to Angel.

"Listen, Angel, just gimme a few more days to suss things out. I'll ride back with the treasured scrolls then."

Buffy smiled. It wasn't a no.

* * *

"Tell me about dying," Buffy said.

Spike kept his gaze on the passersby. "What do you want to know? You've done it before."

"Were you scared?" She poured more milk into her cup.

"When I died?"

"Yeah."

"Wasn't then. Later, though, when I showed up in LA. I was terrified, then."

Buffy quietly sipped her coffee. The street lights of the open-air cafe produced a halo around the vampire across from her. She knew that was a deceptive image. He was far from an angel.

"I'm sorry you had to deal with it alone."

Spike finally broke from his people-watching to glance at her. "Wasn't like what you went through. I hadn't been in heaven or anything like that."

"Still."

He sighed. "Still."

Their waiter stopped by to check on them. Buffy waved him away with a smile.

"You really meant it?" Spike asked as soon as the waiter had left.

Buffy blinked. "Meant what?"

"What you said down in the hellmouth?"

She set her coffee mug down. "No, Spike, I was totally lying to you in the last seconds of your life."

He snorted. "Right."

"Of course I meant it. I'd practically been _screaming_ it the days leading up to the whole thing."

He raised an eyebrow.

"...non-verbally," she amended.

"I think I believed you then. Couldn't admit it cause I had to save the world and all, but I knew it. Then I came back all ghost-like and Angel told me - well, I convinced myself that I was probably just making a big deal out of nothing."

"It wasn't nothing for me."

"Nor for me."

Buffy's sandaled foot reached under the table to caress down Spike's shin.

* * *

The dryer rattled with a loud clanging sound. Buffy walked back to the chairs lined up by the wall of the all-night laundromat and reclaimed her seat beside Spike. He sat with his arms crossed, feet stretched out, head tilted to the side like he was about to fall asleep.

"Crappy dryer," Buffy commented.

"Sounds as if it's about to launch into orbit."

"I hope it lets me grab our clothes first."

Spike chuckled at her weak joke, but he didn't speak again. Buffy's hand swept down Spike's arm to tease his fingers. In response, he captured her hand in a firm grip.

"I had a place in LA," Spike said.

Buffy would have been confused at the subject change if she hadn't known the looming question that was hanging over both their heads. Instead, she remained still. The dingy laundromat was completely empty besides them.

"Like I belonged for once. Back in Sunnydale, hardly anyone gave a fuck about me. Was an outsider. That gets old after a while."

Buffy squeezed his hand.

Spike continued, "Angel gave me that in LA. That's why I stayed."

Buffy turned to look at him. "I can give you that."

Spike's chin quivered, though more from excess emotion than from any impending tears. He kept his gaze forward.

"I think I'd like that."

* * *

Buffy reluctantly released Spike's hand only when they reached the gate. The throngs of people walked around them.

"You're sure that this airplane is vamp-safe?" she asked.

"Company jet. Completely sun-proof."

"The evil company?"

Spike shrugged. "The very one."

"I'm still not sure about that."

Spike turned to face her. "It won't matter much longer. I'm only going back to drop off the scrolls. Then I turn right around and meet you in England."

She smiled. "You better not let me down, mister. No disappearing again."

He brushed her hair away from her face. "No disappearing. Promise. I love you."

"I love you." She pulled him down for a kiss.

There'd been plenty of passionate kisses in the past week. This wasn't one of them. It was a kiss of promise and hope and beginnings. When Buffy pulled away, she couldn't keep the smile off her face. It was like a permanent fixture.

"Call me when you get there."

"Of course."

* * *

**Twenty four hours later...**

The hook of the hanger twisted as Angel attempted to hang his jacket up in the office closet. He righted the hook, enjoying the satisfying metallic snap as the hanger latched onto the closet rod. He straightened his suit as he walked back to his desk.

The still-wet bloodstain slowly spread across his carpet. With a press of a button, Angel summoned his cleaning staff up to take care of it. Then he flipped through his Rolodex to find Buffy's most recent number.

He balanced the phone between his shoulder and ear while he dialed.

"Hello?" She picked up on the first ring.

"Buffy, hi."

"Angel? I'm expecting a call from - " She cut herself off.

"From Spike, I know. I have some bad news, Buffy."

"About Spike?"

Marta, the cleaning lady, entered wearing thick rubber gloves and carting a variety of spray bottles. The smell of disinfectant filled the room.

"Buffy, Spike is dead."


	2. Chapter Two

Spike growled against the pain. His gums gushed blood from where his fangs had been pried out. Gaping holes in his mouth flooded over with the coppery fluid. He hadn't been able to get back into his human face since the de-fanging.

He'd been crammed into a tiny room, chained to the wall, and stripped of his clothes. He knew the joint. Everybody knew about Lyle's demon brothel. He'd never expected to find himself in it, though.

Lyle, the bastard, paced in front of him with a contemplative look. Spike hoped to startle him by jerking at the chains. Lyle didn't even bat an eye. Spike's mouth throbbed.

"I have a lot of offers coming in for you already. You've made a lot of enemies. It's...well, it's wonderful for my business."

Spike tried to ignore the twinge of pain from the wound on his neck, but it wasn't so easy.

"I'm thinking a bidding party is in order - an auction." Lyle clapped his hands. "A lot of my clientele would want you just on principle. A vampire who deliberately sought out a soul? Pretty offensive to the old-timers. Then there'll be the VIPs who have a grudge. They'll probably be willing to dish out a good amount to obtain _you_."

Spike swallowed his own blood.

"I should get started on planning."

* * *

Buffy stood in the front lobby of Wolfram & Hart.

The twelve hour flight to England had almost wiped her out. Then Angel's call produced one of those miraculous adrenaline rushes that allowed her to take the twelve hour _return_ flight back to the US. Somehow, in the foggy haze of jetlag and complete timelessness, she had navigated the connection at O'Hare and made it to LA.

If she hadn't already had a lot of experience with sudden deaths, she almost wouldn't have believed it. After all, Spike hadn't even called her like he had promised. Instead, she'd received a call from _Angel_ about Spike's death. She almost wished she _could_ be surprised. Instead, she felt resigned.

"Wow. This place is...wow," Dawn said. She stared up at the multi-leveled balcony that overlooked the lobby. Employees glanced at the obvious tourists.

Buffy hadn't wanted to come alone.

"So...why is Angel working for an evil company again?"

A question that Buffy didn't know the answer to. "Let's just find him." She deflected.

Dawn trailed behind her as Buffy found the company directory by the elevators. Angel was the chief executive officer, and his office was marked with a star. She pushed the up button and waited for the first available elevator. Once it arrived, she and Dawn stepped inside.

Music played. Or muzak. Whatever it was, Buffy wished it would stop. Her head throbbed. The exhaustion was getting to her. Perhaps she should have rested upon arrival? It's not like Spike was gonna get any deader.

The thought almost made her retch, and she wished her brain hadn't come up with it. She was just too tired to filter out the bad.

With a far too cheerful ding, the elevator presented them to the executive floor. Another huge lobby with shiny floors and glass sculptures and a receptionist area at the far end. Harmony and Angel were waiting.

Angel strode across the floor as soon as Buffy and Dawn stepped off the elevator.

"Buffy, I told you you didn't have to come." He barely spared a glance at Dawn.

"Didn't have to - ? Of _course_ I had to come."

Angel stopped a couple feet from her. He looked like he wanted to come closer, but he held back.

"There's not much to do. I mean, vampires...there's no body when a vampire dusts, you know."

Buffy fought back the urge to snap at him. To tell him that _of course_ she knows that. Instead, she remained focused on her goal. "I want to hear what happened."

Did Angel look reluctant? Finally, he nodded. "Okay."

* * *

Angel's office was as spacious and pretentious as the rest of the building. The sofas were cushy, though, and Buffy felt her body settling comfortably into the plush seat. With her current state of exhaustion, she'd have to be careful not to fall asleep.

The prospect of hearing what had happened to Spike managed to stir her on, though.

Harmony set the coffee on the table in front of them. She looked at Buffy. "It's so horrible, what happened to Spikey. I would wear black to, like, mourn, but it totally makes me look even more pale."

Then she walked out.

Dawn glanced at Buffy with raised eyebrows. Buffy knew the feeling.

"I don't know what to tell you," Angel said while grabbing the coffee cup. He leaned back on the sofa across from the two women, looking completely composed and cavalier.

"What happened would be good," Buffy prompted.

"Yeah. Well, he came back from his mission right in the middle of an emergency. A man of ours was under siege by some Traloxan demons. Good man. As soon as I mentioned it to Spike, he was out the door to try to save him." Angel took a sip. "He did, too. But one of the demons got him at the last second. Stake through the heart. I don't think Spike even realized what had happened before he was..."

Buffy closed her eyes to ward off the images of Spike getting staked, but they appeared anyway. His body jolted as the wood entered his chest. He'd glance down, of course, in disbelief. Then he'd try to say something cocky and noncommittal before his body disintegrated into dust. He'd blow away, then. The tiny bits of him disappearing. Then nothing.

"He didn't say anything about me?" Buffy asked, trying to keep her voice even.

Angel shook his head. "No. Why would he?"

"Then why'd you call?" Dawn interrupted.

Buffy blinked. Angel also looked surprised.

"I mean, you called Buffy. Why? Before Spike's last mission, Buffy hadn't even known that he was back from the dead the _first_ time. So why would you call her?"

"Dawn," Buffy said. "It's not important. I just..."

She wanted to see him. Have some sort of memorial. Look over his dead body. But vampires didn't leave a body. She didn't have anything to mourn. And Spike hadn't even called her when he got here.

Why was that the one thing standing out? It was so petty and selfish. There was an emergency. Of course Spike didn't have a chance to call her. Or mention her to Angel.

Something at the back of her mind niggled at her that there was something wrong with that, but she was too tired to grab at it. She wanted to give in to the fog of sleep and wake up to discover this was all a dream.

"Why don't I get a hotel room for you guys?" Angel said. "You look tired. Stay in LA for a bit. On me."

Dawn frowned. Buffy nodded.

"Thanks, Angel."

* * *

Spike pulled against the chains that bound his wrists. He'd been left alone for a long time now. He knew he hadn't been forgotten. No, Lyle was just off, making plans.

But he still felt alone.

The room he'd been left in was small and plain. It had probably been a closet in a previous life, but the shelves had been stripped out so only studs in the walls remained. The only light was a bare bulb with a string dangling above him. Spike could probably kick down the door if the chains weren't binding him to the opposite wall.

The raw wound on his neck wasn't healing. It _wouldn't_ heal unless he got some blood, and he hadn't been provided with any so far. He only assumed he would be before the auction.

The auction. Spike would be sold off to the highest bidder. To be displayed like some rare collectible, most likely.

Spike closed his eyes and thought of Buffy. She was the only remaining panacea to his gut wrenching loneliness and despair. Merely conjuring her image to his mind was enough to soothe his soul.

Too bad he'd probably never see her again.

* * *

The hotel pillow squished against Buffy's chest. The view from the large window revealed a startlingly beautiful view of LA. Too bad Buffy's mind was elsewhere. Her brain looped around, cycling through the "what ifs" and "what could have been" and "why".

A sharp knock on the door preceded Angel's immediate entrance. Buffy only glanced in his direction before looking back out the window.

"Am I intruding?" Angel asked.

Buffy shook her head. There didn't seem to be anything to intrude _on_ anymore. Not with Spike gone.

Angel sat down on the chair across from hers. He followed her gaze. "The room okay?"

"Perfect," she replied in a monotone.

The room Angel had gotten them was the height of luxury. Way better than the council ever provided for her. However, she couldn't even bring herself to enjoy the fancy bathroom or the mini-fridge or big-screen TV.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know you'd be so shook up over him."

Buffy's fingers reflexively dug into the pillow. "He was gonna be coming to live with me in England. He'd just come back here to deliver the scrolls and pass the news along."

"I had no idea."

Buffy's feet began to tingle as they fell asleep underneath her. She didn't want to shift her position, though. The armchair beneath her felt fragile. If she rocked it too much, it might collapse. Instead, she reveled in the sensation of the nerves deadening in her toes.

"Did you love him?" Angel asked.

The question forced Buffy to look away as moisture came to her eyes. She didn't want Angel to see her tears for another man. Her relationship with Spike had been too private for Angel, of all people, to see her grief.

"Never mind," Angel said. "Listen, Buffy." He leaned forward. His hand went to her knee. "If there's anything I can do. _Anything_. Just let me know. I'm here for you, okay?"

Buffy nodded.

"Let me take you to lunch. And - where's Dawn, anyway?"

* * *

"See that guy over there? Totally hit on me the other day. And I was like, 'Ew!' I may be a vampire but I have _standards_!" Harmony gestured with her fork in between bites.

Dawn had her best listening face on, even though she so didn't care about most of what Harmony was saying. She'd brought the vampire out to lunch for information, not petty gossip.

"So," Dawn interjected as casually as she could manage. She stabbed her straw into her drink full of ice. The cubes rattled. "Where is everybody?"

"Everybody?"

"Yeah. I thought Angel had more people working for him. Wesley and some girl, Fred?"

Harmony paused with her fork halfway to her mouth. "Oh. Well, I don't think I should talk about that..."

Dawn pounced...metaphorically. "Why not? Come on, Harmony? We're old friends, right?"

"I don't know..."

"Please? I'll buy dessert."

"Well, they do have this chocolate cake that is _to die_ for!" Harmony smiled. "Fine. Yeah, there used to be some others. Gunn, Wesley, Lorne, Fred. Then Spike, of course. Everybody just kinda...drifted away, though."

"Why?"

Harmony shrugged. "They had issues with Angel. Just because he's the head of this kinda-evil organization, suddenly they start getting cold feet. Hello! They have no problem working for a _vampire_ but throw some lawyers into it and they start having 'issues'. Angel didn't need them anyway."

"And Spike?" Dawn asked.

"What about Spike?"

"Did Angel need him?"

Harmony rolled her eyes. "Angel was always one step away from dusting my blondy bear, himself. I'm surprised somebody else got to him first."

* * *

Once again, Buffy sat alone in the hotel room. Angel had taken her out for lunch in an attempt to cheer her up. She hadn't been very attentive during the lunch, though. The fancy bistro with its fancy food and fancy clientele failed to impress her. It failed to even hold her notice. Every thought led back to Spike.

This was grief. She recognized it. She thought it had been bad the first time Spike had died. _This_ was almost unbearable by comparison. She could hardly move, crushed as she was by the knowledge of what she'd lost. What they hadn't had. What they'd both wanted.

She should have gone with him. Or he should have just skipped LA and gone with her. She could have prevented this. A million scenarios ran through her mind of how she could have prevented this.

_Every night I save you..._

The swipe of a key card interrupted Buffy's tears, and Dawn entered. She tossed her purse onto the closest bed and hopped onto the chair across from Buffy. It was the same chair Angel had occupied early. Dawn seemed to buzz with excitement, and she had one of her ultra-serious looks on.

"Buffy! We need to talk."

"Uh huh. I can see that." How could Dawn manage to work up so much energy?

Dawn leaned forward. "I took Harmony out to lunch, and I don't think we can trust Angel on this one."

"Angel?"

"Listen, things have been weird since he started working here. Like, he had all these people working with him, but Harmony says they're gone now. And then Spike. Harmony says that Angel had it out for him - "

Buffy rubbed her forehead. "Dawn..."

"I mean, it's not making any sense. Angel's acting super-creepy and that whole thing about him calling you?"

"Dawn."

"I'm thinking he killed Spike, himself. I just need to check on his story about the demons. There should be some - "

"Dawn!" Buffy snapped. Dawn fell quiet with a sour look on her face. "Dawn, right now, I can't...not Angel."

"Buffy, don't tell me you trust him. He is working at Hell Inc., you know."

Buffy chewed on her lip. She tasted the tang of salt on her tongue as tears made their way down her cheeks. Why was this so hard? Normally, she'd be taking any excuse for action. Anything to avoid the grief. Now, though, she just wanted to wallow.

But Dawn stared at her with such conviction, Buffy couldn't turn her down.

"Okay," she said. "I'll see what I can find out."

* * *

The door was open. Buffy knocked on the door frame while peering inside. The occupant, Max, looked up from his paper-covered desk. The darkened office tucked far back in a forgotten corner of the building likely didn't see many visitors. Max seemed surprised at her appearance.

"Mind if I come in?" Buffy asked.

Prompted into remembering his manners, Max jumped up and gestured her in. He was a short man with curly hair and glasses. His shirt had a pocket protector. Buffy didn't exactly _want_ to enter the office, which gave off an odor of stale Cheetos, but she knew it was necessary to assuage Dawn's suspicions.

Max remained standing until Buffy had sat down in the cushioned chair across from his desk. The visitor's chair showed little wear and tear, as opposed to just about everything else in the office.

"What can I do for you...?"

"Buffy Summers," Buffy supplied. "I'm actually a...friend...of Spike's."

Max's eyes went wide, and he rustled through some folders on his desk. "Spike. Yes. Very tragic. He was a good man - vampire."

Buffy nodded. She'd had to push that grieving part out of her head. She had a mission. "Angel tells me that he died while rescuing you. Some traffic demons or something?"

"Traloxan demons, yes. I - I'm still blaming myself. For it." Max looked at the corner of the room instead of Buffy. "Entirely my fault."

"You're an accountant?"

"Yes. Seventeen years."

"How'd you get caught up in a fight with some demons?"

Max released a nervous laugh. "Kinda funny. I was supposed to meet this appraiser - on business - but then I got ambushed. I kinda manage a lot of high-security accounts and the demons, they hold a grudge sometimes. You know how demons can be."

Buffy nodded. "But you're okay? You don't look injured. At all." The guy might as well be holding up a sign that said 'I'm Lying'. Buffy didn't need to be a stellar body language expert to read this one.

"I'm adept at dodging."

"Uh huh." Buffy stood. Her own suspicious were finally beginning to be roused. "Thanks. I just wanted some more information."

Max nodded. "Of course." He paused. "We all do what we can to keep Angel happy."

* * *

The wall paintings shook as Buffy slammed the door. Her hair bounced with her angry gait. Angel was up and halfway around his desk by the time she reached the center of the room.

"Buffy?" His hands were already out in an appeasing gesture.

"I want the truth, Angel."

"What?"

Buffy's fists were clenched. "About Spike. Your story isn't holding up. Your guy Max? There's no record of any meeting anywhere. Why's he covering for you?"

Angel turned back to his desk. He set the phone off the hook before facing Buffy again. "Buffy, calm down. Let's talk."

"Yes, let's. Tell me why you called me after Spike died." She crossed her arms.

Angel sighed. He rubbed his eyes. "I just...needed someone else to know." When he looked up, his eyes were glittering with unshed tears. "This - this isn't easy, Buffy. For all he may have annoyed me, he _meant_ something to me. And now he's gone. And I just..._wanted_ someone I cared about - who also cared about _him_ - here with me. You."

A chill crept over Buffy's body. Her anger dissipated at the depth of emotion Angel was finally showing. He must have been bottling it up. It's not like she didn't know anything about bottling. She should have known rather than rushing around guns blazing to accuse him of...

"Angel," she said as she put a hand on his arm. "I'm sorry."

"I just _miss_ him."

Before she knew it, Angel was wrapped in her embrace, softly shaking with sobs. Buffy tried to will her own tears back, trying to be strong for him. But they couldn't be stopped.

They cried together.

* * *

Buffy had barely released the heavy hotel door before Dawn was running up to meet her.

"Well?" Dawn asked.

Going around her sister, Buffy tossed her purse onto the nearest bed. Her eyes still ached from the cryfest she'd had with Angel. Her entire brain felt as if it were about to collapse.

"Leave him alone, Dawn. He's telling the truth." Her jacket joined her purse, and Buffy began to undo the straps on her shoes.

"What? What did he say?"

"Dawn, just leave it!" Buffy snapped.

Dawn crossed her arms, obviously prepared for a fight. Buffy wasn't in the mood for it, though. After her shoes were off, Buffy went into the bathroom and closed the door. The room had a generously sized tub, and Buffy had been wanting to give it a spin. She began the task of setting the temperature, turning the cold and hot faucets back and forth to find the appropriate warmth.

As the water tumbled into the tub, Buffy allowed her doubts about Angel to wash away. It had been the grief that had caused her to get angry in the first place.

Angel wouldn't lie to her.


	3. Chapter Three

_Two weeks later_

Spike hung from a chain dangling from the ceiling. The restraints cut into underside of his wrists. His feet barely touched the concrete floor - not near enough to alleviate the pain in his hands. Nor to ease the pressure on his torso. His clothes had long been stripped of him, so he remained exposed to the grungy workers who kept appearing and disappearing.

Still, this was the first actual attention he'd received since his arrival. Spike would enjoy it for that.

After a few seconds of swaying, a high-pressure water hose hit him with the force of a freight train. Any cry he may have released was swallowed by the raging water. His body bounced and buffeted, caught like a twig in a rapids. He had absolutely no control. Any force he attempted to exert was overwhelmed by the deluge. All he could do was keep his mouth shut and wait it out.

The water did its job, scouring away the grime and blood that had collected on his body these past few weeks. It felt like it was pummeling his insides, too. Already, Spike could sense bruises developing. Just when it hit the point where Spike felt the water would punch a hole right through him, it stopped.

His ears thrummed in the absence of the water's roar. His body spun, and water dripped off him. Spike kept his eyes closed when the lights came on.

"Much better, though I'm still going to need you to scrub him down." Lyle said. Spike squinted his eyes open, trying to see. He'd been in complete darkness ever since he'd gotten here. The brightness seared his retinas.

Somebody prodded his bruised stomach. Spike swung back and forth.

"Also, get him some food. He looks like a fucking skeleton."

* * *

Dawn's foot tapped an irregular beat on the concrete floor. The staccato faltered every time someone walked by her table. She'd take a sip of her drink - some bile they had on tap - and then recover her antsy rhythm.

The message had said to meet here thirty four minutes ago. Dawn prided herself on her punctuality. She hated it when other people didn't meet her own standards in that area.

She was about to give up and leave when one of the passersby paused at the table. With only a cursory inspection, he slid into the booth across from her. Definitely human, with dark hair and prominent eyebrows. Dawn tilted her head, attempting to give him her best exasperated look.

"You're Dawn Summers?" His voice rumbled like it had a mound of gravel laying underneath.

"You're late."

"It happens." Without any apology, he fished around in his grubby jacket pocket until he pulled out a crumpled flyer. He scooted it across the table to Dawn. "There you go."

Dawn grabbed it.

**FOR SALE: ONE VAMPIRE W/ SOUL**

Join Lyle Mackson for a night of dinner, drinks, and entertainment as he auctions off Spike aka William the Bloody. Spike is a former master vampire who volunteered to get his soul back. Old enemy? Old friend? Curious stranger? Come and make a bid! If you win, Spike is yours to do with as you will! Bidding starts at $100,000.

"$100,000?" Dawn said.

She'd heard about the auction, but she hadn't realized that Spike would be worth so much. She bit her lip. Her informant across the table started to fidget. Instead of keeping him waiting - as he'd done to her - Dawn reached into her purse and pulled out a one hundred dollar bill. She stealthily handed it off to him. With no more than a curt nod, he was up and gone.

It had taken a lot of work to insinuate herself into the right demon circles to get this information. She'd kept it quiet. Buffy was busy grieving. With Angel. Dawn didn't want to alert her until she had absolute proof that Spike was still alive.

The bottom of the flyer had the date, time, and location of the event. Tomorrow night. It was by invitation only. Fortunately, Willow had taught Dawn enough magic to conjure up a reasonably passable invite for herself.

She'd just have to buy herself a dress before then.

* * *

Angel shrugged off his jacket and tossed it onto the chair. Buffy smiled at him.

"Hard day at the office?" she asked.

"Same as always." He sat down in his usual seat across from her. He turned his head to admire the view of the city that she'd been taking in. "Still haven't gotten used to office work."

Buffy shrugged. "That's why I never did it."

"Smart."

Buffy shifted to look back out the window. She felt that the armchair must have a permanent impression of her ass on it. She'd been spending so much time here. Staring out the window. Talking to Angel. Only occasionally seeing Dawn. She knew she'd have to get up and go home eventually. For now, though. It felt like a vigil or something. She never used to have this sort of luxury. When a loved one died, she still had to fight vampires and save the world the day after. Now, though, she could pause and reflect. She could honor them. Quietly. Privately. It was nice. She knew Spike would have wanted that.

"What are you thinking?" Angel asked.

Buffy's attention snapped back to him. "Just about how nice it is to be able to deal with Spike's death like this."

"I don't know what you mean."

"Like, when my mom died, I still had to dust some vamp in the morgue. It didn't end. It couldn't cause it was just me. Tara's death? Oh, hey, Willow's out to end the world." She sighed. "But now? I just get to rest. And find a peace with it. By myself."

"By yourself?"

"Well, with you." She kicked his foot. "Which is nice."

He leaned forward, elbows on knees. "I can't complain much, either. Buffy, you've been so amazing through this whole thing."

"Angel - "

"No, wait. I just...want you to know that I still love you. I guess it sounds silly saying it now after all this time. But being with you like this this past week has just reminded me of how much I care about you. Still. And if there's any way that we could make a try of it...I'm willing."

Buffy looked down at her lap. She wasn't sure how to respond. She wasn't sure what _she_ wanted. She had wanted Spike. More than anything, she had wanted to be with him. But he was gone now. Did that mean she wanted Angel? No, that didn't follow. Still, she knew she wasn't in the best place to make that sort of decision. She couldn't rule it out entirely.

She looked back up at Angel, who was staring at her with that intense gaze of his that used to bore right through her teenage heart. Her heart was older now, and harder. Scarred, as well. And yet, he still managed to penetrate it.

"We'll see what happens, Angel."

* * *

Dawn's fake invitation had worked without a hitch. The evening found her in a bustling crowd of demons and morally questionable humans in fancy dress. Even though Dawn had splurged more than she had intended to on her dress, she felt severely out of place. She kept expecting someone to mistake her for the help.

The event was being held at Mackson's _estate_. Dawn was used to suburban houses, not sprawling rural behemoths. She felt engulfed by the building itself, even as she was herded in to the main event room. Though some chairs decorated the sides, people were clearly supposed to be standing and mingling. Refreshments were available on long tables or via uniformed servers. Everybody was huddled together in groups, speaking quietly with only an occasional burst of laughter piercing the din.

Dawn kept to the edges of the crowd, drink in hand. She coolly inspected the gatherers, wondering who would go home with Spike. Names were important. She had to get as much information as possible so she could pass it along to Buffy. Dawn wasn't stupid enough to think she'd be able to rescue Spike on her own. Her initial plan had been to bid on him, herself. However, the price tag was way too high for that.

"I don't believe we've met," an older man said while approaching her. He was the age of her grandpa, though he looked like he'd popped out of the wrong century. He wore a handlebar mustache and white gloves. She expected him to produce a monocle, as well.

"Dawn Andrews." She extended her hand in greeting. She'd opted to go by a pseudonym on the off chance that "Summers" might ring some alarms.

"Dominic Mowat," he said. He took her hand in a firm handshake. "Collector of antiquities. Though I'm afraid the specimen tonight is a bit too modern for my tastes. I'm still interested to see who'll win the bidding."

Dawn nodded. "Me too. I mean, I don't think _I'm_ gonna bid. Where would I put him - it? It would just be in the way. But I just_had_ to see who was here, you know?"

Dominic frowned at her. "Are you the new attorney at Wolfram & Hart?"

Crap. Dawn hadn't thought much about a cover story. She'd been relying on skirting under the radar. However, this guy was giving her an easy out. "Yeah," she said. "Brand new. Haven't even really started."

"I thought you looked familiar."

"I hear that a lot." Dawn nervously glanced down at her drink. "So, who do you think is gonna take home the vampire?"

"Well," Dominic said while straightening his suit. He turned to peruse the crowd. "That's a good question. A lot of familiar faces here tonight. Collectors. Of course, there's also some decidedly _un_familiar faces. I suppose demons that are holding a grudge against the vampire. I have not a clue about _them_. But if I were to place my bets on who'd win just out of my crowd? I'd put my money on Lady Amelie Yates over there."

Dawn peered through the partygoers to see a short blonde woman in a sparkling gold evening gown entertaining a host of older men. She had dimples and a smile that swallowed her entire face. Everything about her screamed 'money'. Dawn sighed.

"Course," Dominic continued. "I wouldn't rule out Dick, either."

Dawn blinked. "Dick?"

"Ward. Richard Ward. He's been almost violently ambitious as of late. He almost bested Lady Yates at the previous auction. He could come out ahead on this one." Dominic indicated a young man across the room. Despite his youth, he had gray hair around the temples.

Dawn sipped her wine. "Interesting."

* * *

It had been an agonizingly long mixer, but the host finally herded people into an auditorium. It was fairly modest as far as auditoriums went, but, then again, it was in somebody's house. Dawn took a seat near the back so she could keep an eye on the bidding. Though she'd been given a bidding number, she stuck it in her handbag. Instead, she perched herself at the edge of the plush seat cushion and prepared to watch the action.

Dominic had lost interest after about a half an hour once he realized that she was _not_ keen on being the pretty young thing to his Hugh Hefner-type wealth. This was no loss, as Dawn had already gotten what she wanted from him. From her vantage point in the back, she kept an eye on the two main contenders: Dick Ward and Lady Yates.

"Ladies, gentlemen, intersexed and non-sexed individuals, welcome!" The host, Lyle Mackson, threw up his hands to polite applause. He held the microphone as he paraded around the stage. "I'm so, so happy to have you all here tonight. And what a special occasion!

"As you may know, I've been running the Mackson Brothel for well on thirty years now. I've managed to acquire a wide array of specimens that I've offered up to the community, but this - this is, by far, the grandest. A vampire who's lived for over a century. He's killed not one, but two Slayers in his time. Kin to the legendary Angelus. William the Bloody, whose reputation lives up to his name.

"But that's not all, folks. What you may not be aware of is that William the Bloody, Spike, obtained his soul some years back."

Dawn fidgeted in her seat as a swarm of whispering settled over the auditorium.

"That's right. This wasn't any curse. He purposely sought out his soul and fought for it. Some vampire, huh?" Mackson paused for the scattered laughter. "This makes him only one of two vampires in the world with a soul. Yes, my friends, this is a collector's _dream_. And I have him here for you tonight. Make the right offer and he could be yours to do with as you please. Do I really need to list the myriad of uses he could be put to?"

A chill traveled down her spine and lodged in her stomach. It only grew worse when she noticed that nobody else seemed at all put off by any of this.

"I'll not waste your time any further. Bring it out!" Mackson gestured to someone off stage.

Dawn leaned forward to try to see better as Spike hobbled onto the stage. He was naked, wearing only chains that bound his hands together then joined with a chain around his neck. His gaze was cast downward, and apart from a general weariness to his posture, he didn't look injured. Mackson must have been trying to keep him in good condition.

"Okay, I'll start the bidding at $100,000," Mackson clapped his hands together. "Anybody? $100,000?"

Somebody in the front raised a paddle.

"$100,000 to the highly-esteemed Chancellor Gnor! How about $125,000? $125,000?"

And so the bidding began. It went fast and the amount rose higher and higher. Both Lady Yates and Dick Ward kept their paddles still until one million dollars had been reached. Dawn nearly jumped when Ward's hand shot up.

"Excellent! Mr. Ward for $1 million. Do I have $1,000,100?" Mackson shouted.

Lady Yates' paddle rose.

"Ah, the beautiful Lady Yates. Anyone for $1,000,200?"

The other contenders had dropped out, and a bidding war between Lady Yates and Dick Ward commenced. Dawn had to sip her wine to keep her jaw from dropping as the amount rose past two million - three million.

Her attention was so focused on the two known bidders, Dawn almost missed the single hand rising just down the row from her. Mackson's eyes lit up.

"Why, sir! _Sold_ for $10 million to the gentleman in the back! Thank you, everybody!"

The audience erupted with noise. Dawn wasn't the only one attempting to see who had won. With the throng of people, Dawn had to inch to the front of her seat and conspicuously lean forward. It was a vampire, if her intuition wasn't mistaken. He looked straight out of a 70s cop film, complete with shaggy hair and tight jeans. Dawn frowned. She didn't know him, but she needed to.

Hoping she wouldn't be noticed, she drew her cellphone out and snapped a quick shot of the auction winner. Then she turned and got a picture of Spike just as he was being shuffled off stage. If only she could get a name, she'd consider this a successful run.

Dawn stood as everybody else did. Her plan was to tail the guy. Somebody had to call him by name eventually. She was turning to take position on the opposite end of the auditorium when Dominic appeared. Dawn jumped back, hand on her chest.

"You startled me!" she said.

"I imagine so. Did I see you taking pictures?" Dominic had a wide frown on his face.

Dawn tried to laugh it off. "I promised a friend I'd send pictures of any eligible bachelors. She's _so_ silly about this stuff."

"Seems a little suspicious. A Wolfram & Hart attorney snapping photos at a Lyle Mackson auction. Could seem like some potential blackmail against what I thought was a partner."

Okay, so the guy wasn't going to be put off so easily. Dawn clammed up, affecting her best authoritative face. "What concern is it of yours how Wolfram & Hart conducts its business?"

"Well, I am a shareholder."

Shit. Out of the corner of her eye, Dawn noticed the winner being led into the back. She stifled the urge to just run after him. She had to get rid of Dominic somehow first.

"Mr. Mowat, what makes you think you're privy to the inner dealings of Wolfram & Hart just because you own a few shares of stock in it?"

Dominic's eyebrows shot up, and he stepped back. "Now see - "

"I don't answer to you, Mr. Mowat. I answer directly to the CEO. Now if you'll excuse me." Dawn turned and walked away.

She fought to keep her legs from shaking while doing so.

Dawn made double-time across the auditorium and into the side exit where she'd seen the auction winner taken. She glanced around to make sure no one was watching. The exit led to a small hallway backstage. Voices carried across the distance.

"A fine purchase, Mr. Best." That was Lyle's voice. Dawn removed her shoes, hyper-conscious of the fact that the heels would make a noticeable noise. In her stockings, she crept forward to one of the dressing rooms. The door was closed, but she was able to hear everything very clearly.

"Am I going to wait much longer?"

"Not at all. My men are just preparing the vampire for you."

"I don't need him gift wrapped."

Lyle laughed, though Dawn had a feeling that Mr. Best wasn't smiling. "Good man. Now tell me, what do you plan to do with the vampire? Are you a collector or - "

"I plan to kill him."

Dawn's stomach dropped.

"Oh?" Lyle also seemed put off by this.

"Don't worry. It'll be a slow death. I plan to take my time. Years, if need be."

"I see. Bad blood?"

Mr. Best was silent.

Through the door, the muffled static of a walky-talky interrupted the conversation. After a beep, Lyle replied. Spike was being delivered. Dawn knew she'd have to get out of there _now_.

"Well, Marvin, I'm happy to have helped you."

Dawn smiled as she left.

* * *

Buffy opened the door to find Dawn sitting, back straight, in the chair by the window. As soon as Buffy stepped foot in the room, Dawn jumped up and started to approach. Buffy smiled, hoping to ward off...whatever was bothering Dawn. She'd accidentally stayed the night at Angel's. Not like _that_! Just talking. In any case, it had put her in a good mood.

Dawn's dour expression threatened it, though.

Buffy kicked off her shoes. "What's wrong?"

"We need to talk."

"Okay, but then I'm gonna take a shower. Angel and I sparred some last night, and I still feel sweaty." Plus, wearing the same clothes she'd had on yesterday.

"Buffy, Angel lied to you."

Buffy froze. Dawn had crossed her arms and was gracing her with a no-nonsense stare.

"Dawn, we went over this before - " Buffy said.

Without any hesitation, Dawn reached into her pocket and pulled out her cellphone. She thumbed a couple buttons before holding it up for Buffy to see.

"Look," Dawn said. "I saw him last night."

Buffy grabbed the phone from Dawn's hand. On the tiny screen was Spike. Naked and chained on a stage. The picture was taken from a distance, but Buffy would recognize him anywhere.

"What is this?" Buffy asked.

"An auction. Angel must have sold him to some guy who would auction him off. I got the name of the guy who won the bidding: Marvin Best. He's a vampire, and he's gonna torture Spike. We need to find him and rescue him."

"Why would Angel - "

"Because he's CEO of the Evil Overlord Corp?" Dawn said. "Who cares? He did it."

Buffy shook her head. "Maybe he didn't know. Maybe something happened - "

"Buffy," Dawn said.

Buffy tore her eyes away from the cellphone and looked at her sister. Dawn was right. Trying to figure out Angel's part in all this could wait. Spike was alive.

Spike was _alive_. And she had to save him. It was only the latter thought that kept her grounded from her reaction to the former revelation.

Buffy nodded. "I'm gonna change clothes. And then we're going to find Spike."


	4. Chapter Four

His buyer, Marvin Best, took him directly to an abandoned warehouse. Spike almost had to laugh. It was such a vampire cliche. They _always_ went for the abandoned warehouse.

The warehouse was empty of minions but full of debris from former homeless residents. Spike had his vampire vision to thank for being able to see in the complete darkness. In one corner, an assortment of odd shapes refused to reveal their identity. Spike couldn't make out what they might be.

Marvin led him by the arm to the middle of the warehouse. With a pointed look, he released his grip and walked away.

Spike stayed put. He didn't have anywhere to go anyway.

"Do you know who I am?" Marvin's voice sounded from the shadows.

"The man who bought me," Spike replied.

"I bet you don't remember Linh, either."

Spike squinted. The name was familiar.

"Linh. The beautiful, loving woman that you and your bitch tortured to death." A low rumbling emerged from the darkness. Marvin reappeared, wheeling a square device in front of him. "I don't think you were there when your bitch turned me. You'd already gotten bored."

Spike had a glimmer of a memory of him and Dru doing something like that decades ago. But then, they'd killed a lot of people, and Spike hadn't been in the habit of taking their names. Spike remained silent.

Marvin stopped a few feet away from Spike. "Not only did you kill Linh, you had to go and give me immortality. For what? To make me feel the agony of loneliness forever?" Marvin's face was contorted in rage. "Could have dusted myself, sure. But I knew better. I knew I wanted to get revenge on you first."

Spike shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Broken glass dusted the floor of the warehouse, piercing tiny daggers into the soles of his feet.

"Don't you have anything to say?"

Spike shrugged. The knowledge that the torture was going to come no matter what he did allowed him to maintain a detached state.

With angry, jerking motions, Marvin removed the key from his pocket and unchained Spike. Spike rubbed his neck, careful to avoid Angel's bite mark.

"This," Marvin gestured toward the large device. "Is probably a bit cliche. But I prefer to think of it as a classic. The rack. I trust you've heard of it."

Heard of it, yes. Seen it, no.

Spike allowed himself to be shoved back against the flat surface. He held still while Marvin manacled his arms and legs to the corners.

"You're so quiet," Marvin said. "I expected more of a fight from you, though I suppose I shouldn't have given your current state." Marvin stepped back. "But if you're not going to talk anyway, then I might as well help you out with your silence."

A draft blew against Spike's naked body as Marvin left his side. He returned a few moments later wheeling a tray of various torture tools. Marvin flourished what appeared to be a large set of pliers with sharpened edges. Spike licked his lips in a nervous gesture.

"Let's get that tongue out," Marvin said.

* * *

Angel frowned and gripped the phone closer to his ear. "Are you sure?"

"Of course."

He sighed. "Thank you, Mr. Mowat. I appreciate the call."

Angel set the phone back on the cradle and leaned back. Dawn had been at the auction.

He wondered if she'd talked to Buffy yet.

* * *

The demon whorehouse erupted into chaos at Buffy's arrival. The employees sprang to their feet and started crowding into the backrooms. The Johns looked around in confusion, unsure of where to go. Buffy half-expected the jazzy music playing over the speakers to start skipping.

Before Buffy even had to ask, the manager rushed into the lobby, arms out in the hopes of smoothing everything over.

"Everybody calm down!" the man said, directing his attention firstly to his workers.

Not one to be ignored at this moment, Buffy swiftly approached him and shoved him back against the wall. The wall paintings rattled at the impact, and a couple of the women screamed. Buffy didn't pay them any attention.

"Spike," she said. "You sold him to Marvin Best. Where is he?"

Buffy sensed Dawn's presence behind her. She could see her sister in her mind's eye: arms crossed with a heavy Summer's glare. Despite Dawn's lack of slayer abilities, the two of them managed to produce a frightening united front.

Lyle Mackson looked surprised. His mustache trembled. "I don't know."

"You don't _know_ where one of your valuable pieces of merchandise ended up? Why don't I believe that? What, were you letting people just walk in from the street?"

"I'd never seen him before! But his money was good, so I didn't question him."

"He pay you in cash?"

Lyle nodded. "Plus! Oh! He mentioned that Wolfram & Hart had sent him the invitation!"

Buffy released him, stepping back as if she'd just been slapped. "Wolfram & Hart..."

"Which I thought was funny seeing as, you know, their guy, Angel, was the one who sold Spike to me. But who am I to question them, right?"

Buffy turned to Dawn. Her sister returned a grim expression. They knew where they had to go next.

* * *

With one smooth motion, Marvin turned the rack tighter. Spike grunted in response to the ropes tugging his limbs further apart. His joints hadn't popped yet, but Spike knew Marvin was just warming up. He'd been party to enough Angelus-style tortures to know how it was done.

"I was really looking for that bitch, Drusilla." Marvin reached into a bucket of water and pulled out some sort of instrument. It had a long handle with a ball at the other end. There were holes along the top of the sphere as there might be on a salt shaker. "Holy water," Marvin said right before he shook the instrument over him. Water sprinkled out and sizzled on Spike's skin.

Spike's body jerked in reflex at the pain. He closed his eyes.

"I was surprised to find you weren't with her anymore," Marvin said. "What's the matter? She abandon you?"

Blood still seeped from where his tongue had been carved out. Spike swallowed a mouthful.

Drusilla had cut him off - abandoned him. Like Angel had. Left him alone.

"Your friend, Angel, gave me the information about the auction. He had to take time out of his lunch with some cute blonde to do so. Anyone you know?"

Buffy.

Spike turned his head away. Buffy was the last thing he had to hang onto. The last person who still might want him. He didn't want to hear that she was with Angel. _Please_ anything but that.

He knew he'd screwed up when he didn't call her after being resurrected at Wolfram & Hart. But she'd been willing to move past that. Now, though. Now he'd screwed up again. He'd promised to call her - to go to her in England. He'd let her down again. Of course she'd go running to Angel. If he was completely honest with himself, he realized that even if he _hadn't_ let her down, she probably wouldn't want him in this state.

"Hell, he even gave me the money to buy you. All he wanted was for me to tell you something." Marvin shook the instrument again. Screaming welts covered Spike's body. "He said, 'Tell Spike not to worry about Buffy. I've got her.' Mean anything to you?"

Without warning, Marvin pulled the lever on the rack. Spike's shoulders and legs yanked in opposite directions. Tears fell down his cheeks.

* * *

Dawn had never seen Buffy so angry. Not even after that one time Dawn had taken the heads off all her Barbies and strung them up in grotesque fashion all about her room. Buffy was in full-on slayer mode, and Dawn had to do an approximation of a gallop just to keep up with Buffy's breakneck pace through the Wolfram & Hart offices.

Harmony attempted to greet them. Buffy didn't even look at her.

"Hey! I have to let him know you're here! I'm the secretary!"

Dawn shot Harmony a conciliatory look before rushing off after Buffy.

Her sister had stomped into Angel's office, making sure to slam the doors as loudly as possible. Angel was already moving towards her with his hands out.

"Now, Buffy - "

Dawn stopped as Buffy punched Angel in the face. He went down, colliding back against his desk. The piles of paper scattered around him. Without any pause, Buffy bent over and grabbed him by the lapels, hoisting him up and pinning him to the top of his desk.

"Why'd you do it, Angel?"

"Buffy, if you'd let me explain..."

"Tell me _why_ you did this to Spike. And then tell me where to find him."

"I'm not gonna talk like this."

Buffy attempted to stare him down, but Angel held his ground. Finally, Buffy relented, though her expression didn't soften. She released him and backed up, her arms crossed. Dawn joined her side.

Angel made a show of adjusting his suit. "You know these clothes aren't cheap -"

"_Talk._"

"Fine." Angel grimaced. He looked more annoyed than anything. "I didn't want to tell you any of this because I knew you wouldn't understand."

"Understand _what_? Selling someone into slavery? Lying to me about it? Telling me some bullshit story about Spike being _dead_?"

"Okay." Angel held his hands up. "Don't need the recap. We all know what happened." He put his hands down. "And yeah. This is a vampire thing. It won't make sense to you guys."

Buffy remained silent but steely-eyed.

Angel sighed. "Listen, I'm Spike's sire. Well, his grandsire, but I still have blood rites to him. He's my responsibility. He came back from his last mission gibbering about going over to England to be with you, and I couldn't let that happen."

A crack in Buffy's hard exterior appeared. A less observant person wouldn't have noticed the moisture in her eyes.

"Why not?" she demanded.

"Because, his job now is atoning, not settling down with you. That's what the soul _is_. That's what I've been doing for all these years. If we could just shrug off our responsibilities, I'd have found a cure for the curse a long time ago and been with you."

Buffy blinked. "So you _sold_ him because he was willing to take the opportunity to be with me and you weren't?"

"I knew you wouldn't get it." Angel rolled his eyes. "And look, I didn't just sell him. I took away his blood bond."

"What's that mean?" Dawn asked.

Angel only glanced at her before looking back at Buffy. "Vampire families share a bond. It's how the hierarchy forms. It's how we survive. Vampires can't live alone. With the bond, even when we're scattered about the world, we still _belong_. We're still a part of something. We're kept."

Buffy frowned. "And you - "

"Revoked it, yes. Buffy, Spike's always been a damn problem for the family. Ever since Dru turned the guy. I've had to put him in his place so many times. This time, though, I knew that it was hopeless. Dru had given up on him years ago. I figured out why. So, yeah, I cut him off. Once I did that, I transferred ownership to Lyle. He runs a brothel that Wolfram & Hart has represented a couple times. It's good for PR to provide him with an acquisition on occasion."

"And Marvin Best?"

Angel shrugged. "A guy with a grudge. He'd contacted me a couple months ago asking about Spike. I sent him an invitation to the auction along with some money to bid."

"And you want me to believe that _that_ wasn't petty revenge on your part?"

"No, it was a business transaction. Marvin's gonna do some work for us in return."

Buffy was silent for a few moments. Then she shook her head. "Where's Spike?"

"All I know is that Marvin mentioned being down at the docks."

"There's a lot of docks," Dawn protested.

"Then if you want to find Spike, you should start looking."

Buffy walked forward and removed her stake from...wherever she kept that thing. She pushed it against Angel's chest. "If you ever come near me or Spike again, I _will_ dust you."

She held the threat for a few seconds before backing away. Angel remained fixated on her.

As Buffy turned to leave, Angel said, "I did you a favor. Without his blood bond, Spike's just a shell. At least this way, he's still helping me."

"I'm don't think 'helping you' is a good thing anymore," Buffy said under her breath, though Dawn knew Angel probably heard it.

Once they left Angel's office, Buffy turned to Dawn.

"Dawn, I need you to call home base and have a Council jet sent here as soon as possible. Keep your cellphone on."

"Wait, why?"

"Cause while you're taking care of that, I'm gonna get Spike. Then we're taking him home."

* * *

The bones in Spike's thumb snapped and the jagged edges stabbed the flesh from within. Spike cried out. He instinctively attempted to pull away, but his arms and legs were still bound tight. He couldn't move.

Marvin removed the thumbscrew from Spike's hand and held it up. "That was fun."

Marvin tightened the rack one more notch before wandering off. Both of Spike's shoulders and legs had already popped out of joint, but each additional inch only aggravated the pain.

Spike turned his head, pressing his face against his stretched arm. He gritted his teeth at the unrelenting torment.

"I don't blame you for crying," Marvin's voice rang from the darkness. "Linh cried. Before you killed her."

Marvin reappeared. "And you're not even sorry, are you?" He carried another instrument with him. Spike barely paid attention. He was sure it was another torture device designed to cause him as much agony as possible.

"I know you think the pain doesn't matter since you're cut off from your kin. But it does. It just makes it worse, doesn't it? Knowing that your suffering is for nothing." A metallic snapping noise pierced Spike's ears. "This is something I got off a collector. He didn't want to part with it, but I managed to convince him. With my fangs." Marvin chuckled. "It's called the pear, which is actually a bit of a pussy name for what it does."

Marvin stood in front of Spike and displayed the instrument. It had a bulbous head on one end. "You stick it in a person's ass and...," Marvin pushed a button and the head sprang open with an array of sharp ends. "Then you wiggle it around to make sure it's done its job. Horrifying, isn't it?"

Spike hadn't thought he could still feel the trepidation of fear run through him. His body was already battered. What's one more torture?

But it was instinctual. Knowing what Marvin intended to do, knowing what he _would_ do...Spike wished he would just dust him.

"After this, I think it'll be time to take a breather. Let you rest a bit. It won't do any good to kill you right away." Marvin smiled.

Marvin's hands disappeared from view. The tightness of the rack left Spike suspended a couple of inches above the flat surface. The cold metal of the pear nudged at his backside as Marvin attempting to find his opening. The movement caused Spike's body to jostle against his restraints, heightening the ache of being stretched.

Then the sharp point of the pear made contact with Spike's rectum. His thrust his hips up to get away, but he had such a small range of motion. With no hesitation, Marvin slipped the pear inside. The harsh texture of the metal dragged along his inner flesh, tearing it apart as it went. Marvin didn't stop, though, until it was fully inserted.

It's not as if Spike had never had something up his ass before. Angelus had made use of it many times. This was different, though. This was a jagged bit of metal forced in. There was no yielding on its end. Only destruction.

"Now the suspense," Marvin said in a low voice. "Will I open it now? Or should I wait a bit?"

Spike's breaths came quickly, and his body trembled from the strain. However, he knew Marvin was right. The pain may be bad now, but in a split second, the pear could tear him apart from the inside.

"Just tell me this, Spike," Marvin said. "Do you remember Linh amongst your scads of victims?"

Spike shuddered. He knew which answer might grant him a reprieve, but he also knew any dishonesty would be exposed sooner or later.

He shook his head, closing his eyes in preparation.

There was nothing.

Spike's body relaxed and he opened his eyes. It was then that Marvin triggered the device. It sprang open, the individual petals clawing through his flesh.

Spike screamed.

* * *

Warehouses dotted the docks in clumps. A group of ten or so in one area, separated by a wide open space, then another group.

Buffy stared at the area before her in dismay. The sun was high in the sky, so any vampires would be inside. However, she hadn't counted on row upon row of unmarked buildings. How would she ever find Spike?

If only she had a contingent of slayers with her. She could order them to spread out and launch a full-scale search. It was just her, though, and there was only so much ground one person could cover.

In frustration, Buffy kicked one of the pallets that lay beside a warehouse. A flock of birds took flight, startled by the noise. Buffy stared after them. That's what she needed.

The closest warehouse had a pile of pallets stacked beside it. Rickety though they were, Buffy's slayer speed allowed her to climb the make-shift edifice without them collapsing. Once she reached the top of the building, Buffy settled down on the rooftop, scanning the area.

From this vantage point, she'd have a good view of any vampires going and coming. She knew that this Marvin guy would probably want to eat once the sun went down. She'd be waiting.

* * *

Torment passed into hours such that Spike almost lost track of time. Marvin's departure roused him from his pained stupor. His vampire senses told him that the sun had gone down. Marvin was probably out hunting for both himself and for Spike. After all, Spike needed to heal up a bit so he could be tortured some more.

The blood had finally stopped oozing down his chin from the gash in his mouth where his tongue had been. Marvin had done him the "favor" of loosening the rack before leaving. This only gave him more range for his dislocated limbs to be shaken.

He remained restrained in the darkness. Alone. His body throbbed in a mass of agony, parallel to the agony of his mind.

* * *

It was hours past sundown when Buffy finally saw him. She'd missed his exit, but it was hard to miss his return. He was dragging a dead body along with him.

She leaped onto the ground and followed him at a distance.

Marvin eventually arrived at one of the nondescript warehouses. He gave a cursory look around before opening the squeaky door and pulling the body inside.

Buffy took a deep breath and waited. She fought the urge to rush in after him. She knew it would be all too easy for Marvin to dust Spike as soon as she entered. No, she had to play it quiet. She wished she'd managed to spot Marvin when he'd left the docks, but she didn't linger on that thought. What's done was done.

A quick perimeter of the warehouse revealed an alternate entrance on the far side. The padlock was rusted over, so it only took a sharp tug with her slayer powers to yank it off. Once she did, she opened the door as slowly as possible so as to keep it from making any noise.

The inside of the building was almost entirely pitch black except for a lone lamp set up on the far end. In the halo of the light, she could see Spike on a rack with Marvin and the dead woman beside him. Even from this distance, she could see the red blood liberally coating Spike's body. Her heart skipped.

"...not sure what type of food you would want," Marvin was in the middle of talking. "I mean, obviously, you liked Linh. So I figured another woman would do. Oh, right. But you have a soul now. You don't eat from people - not even if they're dead and corpses." Marvin held the body up. "But I bet you're hungry. Oh, I know that Lyle defanged you, but, - " The light reflected off a blade in Marvin's hand. "Everybody can drink from a mug, right?"

There was no apparent response from Spike. This concerned Buffy momentarily, however she forced herself to put those concerns on the backburner. Marvin had set the body down and was hunched over it, presumably drawing blood into a cup for Spike. In any case, he was distracted.

Buffy crept forward, glad she had worn her sneakers. Even still, her footfalls seemed far too loud in the empty warehouse. She moved faster in order to ensure the advantage of surprise.

She walked past Spike and delivered a kick to Marvin's head. He sprawled backward.

Buffy had her stake out in the next instant, but she waited for him to stand up. "Congrats on winning the auction. The slayer will dust you now," she delivered her requisite pithy line, uncomfortably aware that her voice was shaking in anger.

Marvin was already on his feet, holding his jaw. "What the hell is this? Did Lyle send you?"

"You're slow. That's probably why you didn't notice that we don't _sell_ people anymore." She threw a punch, which he blocked. She fell back a couple steps.

"This doesn't concern you, cunt! He's mine."

She shook her head. "Wrong." Buffy did a standing kick, knocking him off balance. She was about to follow through with the classic stake through the chest maneuver when Marvin picked up a burst of speed. He ducked down and moved behind Buffy, grabbing and pinning her arm at her back. She dropped her stake.

"You're Buffy, aren't you? Angel told me about you."

Buffy stomped on his foot and jerked her head back in a reverse head-butt. That was enough to get him to release his grip on her. She tucked and rolled, coming up facing him.

"Okay," Buffy rolled her eyes. "Let's talk some more. Please."

"Yes, let's." Marvin reached down and picked up her discarded stake. He twirled it in his fingers before casting a glance over at Spike. Buffy tensed. She'd been hoping she wouldn't get into this situation.

Marvin was far closer to Spike than she was. He had the upper hand.

He moved as if to stake Spike. Buffy jumped.

"Don't!"

Marvin froze. He looked at her with a grin. "Why not? He's not the vampire you thought he was."

"I know exactly who he is," she said. She knew Marvin was trying to distract her with talk of Spike's soulless misdeeds, but she wouldn't let him. She was well aware of what Spike had been.

She began moving slowly, hoping he wouldn't notice her approach in his attempt to unbalance her.

"Do you? I don't think you do. Listen, if given a choice, do you think Spike would prefer to be rescued by _you_ or for me to dust him?"

Buffy frowned. "What type of question is that?"

He laughed. "Like I thought. You _don't_ know. And you're wrong, by the way. Spike would much rather be dusted than go home with you."

"Well, why don't _I_ ask him and see?"

"Actually," Marvin stared down at the stake in his hand. "That works for me."

He tossed the stake at Buffy.

Buffy caught it on instinct. Marvin stood straight, presenting himself to her. She hesitated. This wasn't right.

Spike groaned. She didn't have the time to worry about it. She plunged the stake into Marvin's heart, standing back as his body burst into dust.

Before the last remnant of the vampire had fallen, Buffy had dropped the stake and rushed to Spike's side.

"Spike," she said. As the slayer, she'd seen a lot of blood in her time. Not usually so much from any one person, though. Spike had blood coating his chin, his lips, running down his chest. Angry red welts covered his body, and his limbs looked dislocated. Buffy's first instinct was to touch him, but she didn't know if she could without hurting him even more.

"Hold on," she whispered, more to herself than to him. His eyes were closed. She didn't know if he were even aware of her presence.

Buffy turned to a tray that held a bunch of unpleasant tools, most covered with blood. A key to the manacles that restrained Spike rested among the torture devices. Buffy grabbed it up and unlocked Spike's hands.

His arms fell limp at his side. Buffy knelt to undo his leg restraints. She noted even more blood on the lower half of his body as she did so.

Spike's body nearly slipped off the rack once he was loose. Buffy caught him, holding him at his sides. He gave a moan, but didn't move any.

Her mind raced. She hadn't expected for him to be so injured. She couldn't get him out of here on her own.

Gently, she lowered him to the floor, being careful not to put pressure on any of his wounds. Then she reached into her pocket to get her cellphone. Her hands shook as she dialed.

Dawn picked up after only one ring. "Buffy. They're sending the jet over, but it's gonna be twelve hours - "

"Dawn, I need a pick-up."

"You found him?"

Buffy swallowed. "Yeah, but he's...it's bad. I can't get him back on my own."

"I'll grab a rental car. Oh, and we've been booted from Angel's hotel."

Not a surprise. "We'll get our own place. Just get a car and get here soon. I'm at the docks in the warehouse section. Two rows in from the east. Give me a call when you get here and I'll come flag you down."

"Got it."

Then the line disconnected and Buffy was left alone with an unresponsive Spike.

She knelt beside him. Not sure what to do, she grabbed his hand to hold it. Doing so caused him to jump and he inhaled a sharp breath. Buffy dropped his hand.

"Sorry," she said. On a closer look, she could tell that his fingers had been broken. Stupid Buffy. Why couldn't she have noticed that earlier?

Buffy allowed herself to fully sit on the dirty floor and just watch over him.

"You didn't call me like you promised," Buffy said softly. "You're gonna start to give a girl a complex." Her vision blurred as tears gathered in her eyes. She let them. "I guess you get a pass in this case, though, right?"

Spike didn't respond. She didn't think he was even awake. That was probably for the best.

She wasn't accustomed to doing _nothing_. Just sitting there. Waiting. She wanted action - _needed_ action. She wanted to put some slayer muscle into helping him. Fight off all the people that had even considered purchasing him. Fight off anyone that still wanted to hurt him. She needed _something_ to do other than sitting beside his broken body, watching him bleed blood he couldn't afford to lose.

Buffy's mind jumped to the dead woman Marvin had brought in. She turned. The body still lay behind her.

She shook her head. She couldn't do that. Absolutely not. Spike wouldn't forgive her.

Of course, the corpse wasn't the only blood-filled body in the warehouse.

There wasn't even a moment of hesitation. Buffy stood up and fetched one of the sharper instruments from Marvin's torture array. She'd overheard about Spike's fangs being gone, so she'd have to extract the blood herself.

Buffy knelt beside Spike's head. With a squick slash, she cut a thin wound across her wrist. The blood pooled to the surface.

Being as careful as possible, she lifted Spike's head with her uninjured hand. She rested the other against his mouth.

"Come on, Spike," she whispered.

Nothing. His mouth didn't open. No tongue darted out. He seemed completely oblivious to what she was doing.

She parted his lips and smeared her blood along the inside. She hoped that would have some effect. She knew slayer blood was potent for vampires, though she wasn't exactly certain as to _how_ effective it would be in healing him.

Something was wrong, though. Spike still hadn't even twitched. Surely, the smell of her blood would rouse him at least a little. Buffy probed further into his mouth. Her hand jerked back once it touched the soggy stump at the bottom.

Buffy gripped her stomach, feeling suddenly nauseous. His tongue had been cut out. She'd thought the blood along his chin was from the fang removal, but it must have been from when -

She turned away, afraid she might retch.

Her phone rang. The sound made her jump. She picked it up.

Dawn had arrived.

"Yeah," Buffy said. "Hold on, I'm coming out."


	5. Chapter Five

Buffy was grateful that Dawn had shown an amazing amount of foresight. She had arrived at the warehouse with a rented SUV, along with medical supplies and towels.

"It's too late to get blood, but I'll go first thing in the morning," Dawn said as soon as she came out of the SUV.

It took both of them to gently lift Spike into the back of the vehicle. Buffy jumped in with him and began taking stock of the supplies they had.

"It's not much. Just what they had to offer at the all-night pharmacy," Dawn said while getting into the driver's seat. "There's a Best Western a couple blocks down. We can stay there."

Buffy nodded, though she didn't know if Dawn were looking at her. She didn't know that she had words in her at that moment. Her attention was centered on Spike.

She kept the dome light on to help her inspect his injuries. Obviously, there were the tongue and fangs. The welts on his body were probably from holy water - Buffy recognized the mark. His fingers were swollen and bruised, and his shoulders and legs were dislocated. He also had an older bite mark on his neck. From Angel? Maybe as part of that blood bond whatsit.

The process of getting him into the car revealed another injury she hadn't noticed earlier, though. Blood heavily stained his buttocks, and a closer look confirmed some sort of trauma there. Buffy sat back on her heels and closed her eyes. She didn't know if she could deal with this.

"He'll be okay," Dawn said. Her voice jolted Buffy out of her distress. When she glanced up, Dawn was watching her in the rear-view mirror.

"This is bad, Dawn," Buffy replied.

"I know. But he's with us now. So he'll be okay."

Buffy wished she could be so certain. Marvin's final words lingered in the back of her mind.

She remained huddled in the back of the SUV beside Spike while Dawn left to check in to the hotel. Once that piece of business was taken care of, Dawn drove them to the room at the end of the building.

Buffy hoped nobody saw them carrying the body into the room. The last thing she needed was for somebody to flip out and call the police on them.

They laid out towels on one of the beds before laying Spike on top of it. Dawn grabbed the ice bucket and went into the bathroom to fill it with water. She came back out with a washcloth, which she handed to Buffy.

Buffy sighed. She sat on the edge of the bed and began to gently wash the blood off Spike's body.

"I got antibacterial cream, but...I guess that's stupid." Dawn said while sifting through the first aid supplies.

"I'm gonna need your help putting Spike's shoulders back in place," Buffy said. "Better to do it now while he's asleep so he won't feel it."

"Right. Gosh, that water got bloody fast. Let me refill it."

Buffy had finished cleaning Spike's face. It made a big difference. She wasn't sure what to do about the fingers. Some of the bones were severely fractured, and she wasn't sure if vampire healing would take care of that. She didn't know if vampire healing would take care of the tongue. She didn't know much.

When Dawn came back and set down the bucket of fresh water, Buffy turned to her. "Dawn, there are a couple things that may be...well, it may be hard. Later." She swallowed. "Marvin cut Spike's tongue out."

Dawn's eyes widened.

Buffy continued speaking. "Yeah. I don't know what can be done about that. Also, there seems to be some injury to his backside. You know? I'll need your help with that."

Dawn nodded, but she remained silent.

Buffy looked back down at the vampire beside her. "I'm starting to wish I'd dusted Angel."

* * *

Dawn slept on the bed beside Buffy, apparently undisturbed by the loud buzzing of the air conditioning unit in the window. Sunlight peeked through the gaps in the curtains, bouncing across Buffy's face.

It had been a long night, and they still had many hours till their flight arrived. Buffy and Dawn had washed and patched up Spike as best they could. Buffy had decided to wrap his hands so as to not injure his fingers any more. The bite wound on his neck was bandaged. Everything else was thoroughly cleaned. Though cleaning wounds may not matter that much for vampires, it made Buffy feel marginally better.

She'd also taken the opportunity to bandage her own wound from her failed effort to feed Spike. Dawn hadn't questioned it. She probably assumed Buffy had received the injury while fighting Marvin. Buffy didn't correct her.

Buffy knew she should be sleeping, but she found herself sitting on her side of the bed - the side closest to Spike - watching the sleeping vampire. Now that she'd rescued him, she didn't want to let him out of her sight. Look what had happened the last time she had done so.

A pang of guilt overtook her. Guilt for having left him in the first place. Guilt for not realizing immediately that Angel was lying to her. Guilt for letting this happen.

Her responsibilities were few these days. The slayer spell had given her a respite from the constant struggle of saving the world. She was allowed to indulge herself now, and she had been taking full advantage of it. But once meeting up with Spike again, she felt eager to take up this new responsibility - to him. To be with him, with all that that entailed.

She'd let him down.

Marvin's words still unsettled her. He'd given up with the promise that Spike would prefer to be dusted than be with her. That had to be nonsense, right? The deranged hope of a desperately insane vampire.

Unless he knew something Buffy didn't know, and she was _not_ gonna let that thought go anywhere else. No, she could help Spike. It would take some time and some work, but he'd heal. And then they'd pick up where they'd left off.

As her eyes remained fixed on Spike, she realized he was staring back. She expected some sudden blast of music like you get in movies when someone opens their eyes. Obviously, that didn't happen. Instead, his eyes were just...open.

Buffy dropped to the floor beside the bed, kneeling at his side.

"Spike? How are you feeling?"

He paused as if assessing his own body. However, a response never came.

Buffy cringed. "Tongue! I forgot! I'm sorry!"

He couldn't talk to her.

"Listen, Spike, we have a jet coming to take us back to England. The Council has its own hospital that we can put you up in. You'll be okay." She tried so hard to sound reassuring. Being comforting wasn't a trait she'd really nurtured before. She obviously wasn't very good at it, though.

He simply looked at her for a few minutes more before his gaze wandered to the ceiling.

"I know you're in pain," Buffy said, not sure where she was going with that thought. "But I'm gonna help you, Spike. I promise."

He didn't respond. He closed his eyes, shutting her out.

Buffy felt like crying.

* * *

Buffy hadn't planned on going to sleep. She hadn't thought she'd be able to. But one minute had her lying down on the bed beside Dawn, the next had her rousing to the sound of Dawn's voice along with the smell of coffee.

Buffy blinked and turned her head. Dawn was at Spike's side with a coffee mug in hand. A cup of what appeared to be blood with a straw hanging out sat on the bedside table.

"Then there was this guy, Jack - you wouldn't have liked him, and _he_ - " Dawn paused when she heard the bed springs creak at Buffy's movement. She turned. "Finally! Thought you'd sleep forever. There's donuts on the table. Our jet gets in at four, so we have several hours. Oh! I also threw some Council money around and got a wheelchair for Spike." She jumped up and ran across the small hotel room to pick up something from the corner. "Complete with umbrella!" She triggered the umbrella open with a flourish. "To keep the sun off, you know?"

When had her sister gotten so resourceful?

"That's great, Dawn," Buffy said.

She couldn't help it. Her eyes strayed towards Spike. He was watching Dawn intently, completely ignoring Buffy's presence. Her stomach sank. Why wasn't he acting happy to see her?

Dawn was walking back to Spike's side when Buffy stood up. "Hey, I'm gonna go for some breakfast. This place does have a continental one, right?"

"Closed at ten, Rip Van Winkle," Dawn replied.

"Oh. Well, then, I'll just go to their cafe or whatever they have. I need something more than a donut."

Dawn barely glanced at her. "Okay."

Buffy made her quick escape. As soon as she did, she wished she'd taken a shower first. She still smelled like she'd rescued a tortured vampire from a dockside warehouse.

The Best Western didn't offer any dining alternatives besides the now-closed breakfast. However, there was a diner across the street. The sign would say "Debby's", but the second 'b' had fallen off. So Buffy made her way to the Deby's, hoping they wouldn't be too particular about her current smell.

Even though the bell rang at her entrance, she still had to clear her throat to rouse the hostess, who had been doing a word search.

The apathetic employee waved at her to pick a table, so Buffy tucked herself into an isolated corner and pulled out her cellphone. After she placed her order for a slayer-sized lunch, she dialed Willow's number.

"Hello?" Her friend's voice popped onto the line.

"Willow, hey."

"Buffy! What's been going on there? We're all confused! Spike's dead. Then he's not. But Angel's evil and you need the jet?"

"Yeah." Buffy scooted the salt shaker around the table. "It's a long story, Will. I'm kinda tired now. I just wanted to check with you on a couple things."

"Okay. Shoot."

"Well, I need you to do some research on vampire families. Specifically to some ritual where sires revoke a blood bond or something like that."

"This doesn't sound promising for Spike," Willow said.

"This will sound even worse. I need you to look into tongue regeneration."

"What?"

Buffy's food arrived, and she had to juggle her phone to accommodate the new arrangement. Once everything had been settled, she began again.

"I don't really have the time to go into the whys on this one, but Spike's tongue was removed. By the time I get him to England, I want some solutions as to how to, you know, get it back. Or grow another one. Or give him a mechanical one. I don't know. Just something, Will."

"Okay." Buffy could tell that Willow's mind was already processing and working things out. "I'm not gonna promise anything."

"Thanks."

"And Buffy? Are _you_ okay?"

Buffy stirred her food around on the plate. "I'll see you soon." She ignored the question. "Bye, Willow."

* * *

Buffy had a bandage on her wrist. Spike felt the faint workings of Slayer blood inside him. Not much. Just the tiniest wisps stirring around, fueling him.

She'd tried to feed him at some point. He didn't remember.

With the torture and injuries, there were a lot of murky spots in his memory. It made the present seem hyper-real. Every sensation and experience was magnified. Buffy's disappearance in the afternoon. Dawn helping him into the wheelchair and holding the umbrella for him. The car ride to the airport. Getting onto the jet and settled - by Dawn, not Buffy.

It felt too real to be real. Spike wouldn't have been surprised if he'd woken up back in Marvin's torture chamber with his dick cut off or something.

It was humiliating being carted around like a mute invalid. Which is what he was, but he didn't want to admit it. Buffy shouldn't see him like this. Dawn, especially, shouldn't see him like this. Nobody should see him like this.

"Are you hungry, Spike?" Dawn leaned over after the jet had taken off.

He shook his head. She'd given him a window seat - despite the fact that all the windows were shuttered - and covered him with a blanket. The Council jet wasn't as luxurious as Wolfram & Hart's had been, but it was better than riding in a cargo hold.

Buffy sat on the far side of the plane. Her hair was still wet from the rushed shower she'd taken back at the hotel, and she was fiddling with her cellphone. He willed her to turn and look at him, while at the same time hoping she wouldn't.

Dawn noticed where his attention fell. She turned. "Buffy? I think he wants you."

Spike rolled his eyes. She meant well.

Buffy glanced up and put her phone to the side. She walked over to sit down beside him. Dawn took the opportunity to move to the next cabin.

"She's being almost _too_ attentive, isn't she?" Buffy gave him an apologetic smile.

Spike didn't know how to respond. He couldn't talk. With his fingers broken, he couldn't even write messages out. He was stuck having to express things with his eyes.

"Sorry, I know now's not a good time to talk," Buffy looked down. "I can sit by you, if you want. It's up to you. Do you want me to stay here?"

He _wanted_ to be wrapped up in her arms, taken into her home, accepted into her being. He couldn't ask a damn thing of her, though, not even if his tongue hadn't been cut out. After what Angel had done, he had no right.

Spike shook his head. Buffy's smile faltered only for a second before she managed to save it. She stood, grabbing a bell from the bag on the floor in front of the seat.

"Dawn got this for you. If you need anything, just ring the bell. I won't disturb you otherwise." Buffy placed the bell on the seat next to his and went back to her previous seat.

Spike watched after her, wishing for the millions of things he couldn't ask for.

* * *

The flight continued in much the same vein. Buffy across the chasm of the aisle, effectively out of reach in more ways than one. Dawn being the over-enthusiastic nursemaid. Every bit of turbulence sending jagged spikes of pain through him. Spike considered himself lucky to have fallen asleep at some point so as to get away from the nightmarish situation.

The landing was, likewise, uneventful. Buffy disappeared while they wheeled him into a nondescript hospital and set him up in a room with dark curtains and a mini-fridge full of blood. Dawn, at least, stayed by his side.

"This place is still kinda new. It comes in handy, though, to have our own hospital, you know? Too many strange injuries that we couldn't explain for a boarding school of young girls." Dawn pulled the curtains tighter together before turning back to him. "The doctors are very good."

As if on command, a doctor and nurse tag-team entered. The doctor was a stern-looking woman with close-cropped gray hair and spectacles that dangled from the edge of her nose. As if to offset the austere attitude of the doctor, the nurse had a huge smile on her face.

"So this is the vampire we've been hearing all about?" The nurse said. A read of her nametag revealed her to be Sarah Davey.

Spike didn't reply. He couldn't, of course.

The doctor - Dr. Parkes - shot her nurse a silencing look before pulling out her pen.

"Spike, vampire, correct?"

He nodded.

"Ah," Dawn jumped in. "He can't talk, Doctor. His tongue was cut out."

Dr. Parkes' eyebrows raised, and Sarah gave him a sympathetic look.

"There's nothing we can do for _that_," Dr. Parkes said. Spike's hopes deflated.

"We know. We're looking at another avenue on that one. We just need you to make sure he's healing alright. Especially his fingers. The bones were fractured pretty badly."

Spike looked to Dawn, curious as to what this "another avenue" was. Nobody had told him about that. She didn't appear interested in elaborating, though.

"Well, let's take a look," Dr. Parkes said. On automatic cue, Sarah stepped forward and began unwinding the bandages Buffy had done. Spike felt an irrational sense of loss as the gauze was stripped away and discarded. Buffy should be here.

The doctor poked at his fingers. "We should take x-rays," she said to Sarah.

Sarah nodded and exited, most likely to prepare an x-ray room. Spike looked to Dawn, but she only smiled in an attempt to placate him.

Spike sighed.

* * *

Home base was a castle now, strangely enough. The move to England had been bizarre and jarring, and Buffy was still adjusting to the new culture. It was almost American, just with a step to the right. Like, they had castles that could be obtained, renovated, and then used to house a passel of young slayers while they trained.

Said castle was only a short drive from their dedicated hospital, and Buffy found herself eager to get away from there. Spike didn't want her.

He didn't want her.

That thought kept circling around her mind, situating itself into her being. A piece of it nuzzled into her stomach, making her ill. Marvin's words to her were in there, too. He'd given up too easily. This bothered her. Almost as much as Spike not wanting her around bothered her.

She knew that Spike was probably embarrassed to be seen in such a state. He never liked to show weakness. Nobody did. However, she hadn't expected him to completely _shut down_ around her. After what they'd been through - after what she'd gone through to rescue him...

She couldn't stay at the hospital, being there while not being wanted.

Buffy pulled into the gravel lot of the castle. Willow was already outside, waiting for her. The redhead wore a mask of rehearsed sympathy and dogged determination.

The usual pleasantries were exchanged while Willow helped carry her luggage to her room. They didn't mention recent events, both of them waiting until they were in private.

Once at her quarters, Buffy scooted her luggage into an unused corner and collapsed onto the couch with a sigh. Willow sat down across from her.

"So..." Willow said.

"Yeah," Buffy nodded. "That's a good start."

Willow pushed herself up to the edge of the seat. "I have some good news! The tongue thing? Well, there are some spells...nothing fancy! Vampires already have healing powers, and stimulating his natural abilities can provoke regeneration. So I'd basically have to just amplify his vampiness, which would have the double effect of stitching up any other injuries he has like that." She snapped.

Buffy frowned. "Amplify his vampiness? What does that mean?"

"Oh, demon stuff. I mean, he has a soul so it shouldn't be too big a deal. And it's gonna be temporary, and - of course, he's in Slayer Central so it's not like it's a _big_ risk - "

"Will, details."

"Sorry." Willow's shoulders sagged. "Vampires are half demon, half human, you know. So this spell would kinda...shift it. Minimize the human, magnify the demon. He'll still be Spike! Just...demon Spike. So violent, cranky, rude. The usual."

"How long would this take?"

"Well, the only precedent I found was a Watcher using it to regenerate a vampire's arm back in the 15th century. That took three days. For a tongue? It probably won't be more than a day, if that."

Buffy nodded. "Okay. We'll do that tomorrow. I'll talk to him to make sure he's okay with it." She rubbed her face. "And the other thing?"

Willow hesitated. "I...haven't really got a chance to look. I've been reading up on the tongue, so..."

Buffy nodded. Willow had her priorities in order. Of course. Once they got Spike back to physical health, then they'd worry about the blood bond mess.

"Once I get the regeneration taken care of, I can start researching that," Willow said, confirming Buffy's thoughts.

"No problem." Buffy stood up. "I'm gonna sleep off some of this jet lag. Thanks, Willow."

* * *

Special heavy-duty drugs had been pumped into him to help him sleep and to kill the pain. They had worked for a while, gracing him with several hours of much-needed sleep. However, the drugs ran quickly through his system, and Spike found himself waking up in the dead of the night. The pain his body was in was muted through the lingering effect of the drugs, though the pressure on his backside ached. The hospital lights were dimmed, and beyond the breathing from next to him, all he could hear were the steady footsteps of the nightshift nurse walking down the hall.

The breathing next to him...

Spike turned his head to see Buffy reading a magazine in the chair beside him. She wore a faded t-shirt with jeans, and her hair was damp from a shower. At first she hadn't noticed that he'd woken. Instead, she continued to flip through the glossy pages of her magazine. He wasn't sure what eventually gave him away. Maybe her own slayer senses alerted her to his wakening.

"Hey," she said while putting her magazine to the side.

He wanted to joke about her reading in such bad light, but he couldn't. That made him feel like punching the wall, but he couldn't do that either. Pathetic.

"I see they changed your bandages. They look much better."

He wished she'd just go. He didn't need her staying by him out of some kind of pity. It's not like she'd ever want him again. Putting on this act was just pouring salt in the wound.

"I don't want to bug you or anything," she said with a forced smile, almost as if responding to his very thoughts. "I talked to Willow earlier. She can fix your tongue. Or, bring it back. Or something. It's magicky stuff. I don't know. But she's willing to do it tomorrow if that's alright by you."

'Magicky stuff' almost never ended well, especially with Willow.

"It's gonna require bringing out your demon, like, a lot. Probably for a day. It helps the regeneration. Spike, is that okay?"

She was expecting an answer from him. Right. Cause he was on his own and could decide things for himself. That's the way of things now.

He didn't know that it would make any difference, but he nodded anyway. It's obviously what she wanted. She smiled at his response.

It wouldn't help anything, but he still liked to see her smile.

* * *

Willow's book-perusing came to a halt when two pages stuck together. She inched a nail between to separate them. Not that it mattered. She already knew what was on those pages, and it didn't help alleviate her nervousness.

She jumped when Kennedy's hand touched her back.

"Easy there," Kennedy said. "Why so shaky?"

"Uh...stuff." Willow set the book on vampire families to the side. "Besides, pretty big spell today. That's always a little nerve-making, you know?"

"Want me to be there?" Kennedy sat down next to her and kept a steadying hand on her arm.

"Would you? I mean, we need slayers there anyway in case Spike gets too grrrr. And you're one of the strongest, so..."

"I can have Malorie do the training for me. Today, I'm all yours." Kennedy smiled. "Now tell me, what was in that book?"

"What book?"

"The book you're trying not to talk about or acknowledge."

Willow sighed. She hadn't planned on talking to Kennedy about this. She hadn't filled her in on the Angel stuff. She figured Buffy wouldn't want that getting around. Still, it would be good to talk about her concerns with someone. Willow decided she could give Kennedy part of the story but leave out the Angel mess.

"Buffy wanted me to research on vampire families for blood rite stuff. For Spike. And it's kinda ooky," Willow said.

"Ooky how?"

"Well, vampires. You know how they are. But I'm afraid of what Buffy might do if she knew what I'd found out."

Kennedy frowned. "You think she might hurt Spike?"

Willow shook her head. "I'm afraid she might help him."


	6. Chapter Six

The room was chilly. Goosebumps appeared on Buffy's bare arms. She crossed her arms more tightly together to guard against the cold.

Everybody else in the room was moving except for her and Spike. Willow and Dawn prepared for the spell, handing ingredients and herbs back and forth over a cauldron. Dr. Parkes flipped through her charts while adding vague disapproving noises at the disruption. Kennedy paced in front of the door with her crossbow firmly in hand.

In the midst of all the bustle, Buffy felt like she and Spike were two lone statues. He lay on the bed, unmoving. Not reacting at all to anything going on around him. And though Buffy willed him to look over at her, he kept his gaze on the wall opposite his bed. Around him, Dawn and Willow placed a circle of candles.

Buffy shifted from one foot to the other. "Anything I can do?" she asked for the fifth time.

Willow shook her head. "Almost ready. I'm just gonna need you two to stand back. I don't want the spell accidentally latching onto you guys and bringing out some crazy slayer demon or something."

Dawn grinned at Buffy before continuing to measure out the boldo leaf onto the candle circle.

Buffy wanted to hold Spike's hand, touch his face, _something_. Her chest ached with every second he continued to ignore her. She tried to tell herself that she just couldn't physically reach him around Dawn and Willow, but she knew that she wouldn't be able to reach him even if they were alone. She hadn't reached him since rescuing him.

"I don't know," Kennedy said. "I think a slayer demon could be interesting." The taller girl moved back against the wall. She hefted the crossbow. Buffy hadn't brought any weapons.

"Okay," Willow said while pushing her hair back. "I think we're ready."

Buffy nodded nervously. She stepped back to stand beside Kennedy. The doctor moved to the doorway.

"Spike?" Buffy asked.

He finally turned his head towards her, though his expression was blank.

"You ready?"

He nodded.

Buffy looked at Willow. "Okay, Will. Go."

Willow smiled, probably in an attempt to be reassuring. She squared off with Dawn so they were on either side of Spike's hospital bed.

"_Primos in demon. Et dabis ei potestatem ipsius esse. Liberavi._"

The temperature dropped even more. The room felt like an ice closet. A wind teased at Buffy's legs and began to rise as Willow and Dawn started chanting. Buffy kept her attention on Spike, who appeared to be trying to look unaffected. However, his sullen look shifted into a genuine frown, and he began to look around the room as if in fright.

Beside her, Kennedy shifted her grip on her crossbow.

Willow's voice had risen in tenor until she was yelling loudly to the swirling mass of wind and magic centered around Spike. Dawn had stepped back, her own magical limits having been reached. Buffy had to put an arm up to protect her face from the raging tempest churning around the room. With a final command from Willow, the vortex shattered and Spike fell back onto the mattress.

Buffy rushed to him. "Spike!"

Willow wavered on her feet, but Kennedy ran forward and caught her by the elbow. Dawn was left to brace herself against the wall for support.

"He's okay, Buffy," Dawn said while gasping for air. "It worked."

It had. Spike was in vamp face now. His eyes were shut tightly, and his teeth were gritted, revealing healed fangs. Without thinking, Buffy stroked his cheek.

He snapped at her. His body surged up, and his bandaged hands grabbed at her arms. On instinct, Buffy deflected and pinned him back down onto the bed with one hand. Kennedy was by her in an instant.

"Hello, vampire," Kennedy said. Spike's feral growls filled the room.

"This is normal," Willow rushed to say. "This is what the spell's supposed to do. Don't worry, Buffy."

Easy for her to say. Buffy's arm trembled as Spike tried to shake off her confining grip. He snarled like an animal.

"We should get some restraints for him," Kennedy said.

Buffy nodded absently. She couldn't hold him down for the duration of the spell.

"Already on it," Dr. Parkes said. She opened the door and exited the room, satisfied now that the magic had been completed.

As soon as the door shut, though, something changed. Spike's struggle abruptly stopped. His body remained tense, but instead of his aggressive demeanor, he adopted a submissive posture. Buffy frowned.

"Spike?"

He cringed and turned his face away. A high keening noise came from him. It sounded like a wounded dog. Buffy released her grip on him, and he turned his body to the wall and curled into a fetal position.

Buffy looked at Willow. "What's wrong?"

Willow held onto Kennedy's hand. "Nothing. He's still in vampface. He's just...you know, not trying to kill us. Which I think is of the good, right?"

Dawn approached him slowly and reached a hand out to his shoulder. "Spike?" He jerked away. The crying noise increased in volume. Dawn withdrew her hand.

His whimpering wrenched at Buffy's stomach. She wanted to curl up with him and hold him. Comfort him. _Anything_ to keep him from crying like that. Whatever was happening, it was twisting at her soul. She fixed Willow with a stare. "Will, this is _not_ normal."

Willow sighed. "Well, of course it isn't! He had his blood bond taken away! Now that he's all demon-y, the full effect of being cut off from his family is hitting him. But he'll _be_ fine. Once the spell wears off, he'll - "

"Be able to hide the pain again?" Buffy was aghast. She knew the blood bond was a big thing, but she hadn't realized the full impact of it.

"I'm not the one who did this to him," Willow said. "So don't go looking to blame me." She stormed out.

Kennedy gave Buffy an apologetic look, then followed her girlfriend.

Dawn walked around to Buffy's side of the bed. Her gaze was fixed on Spike. "What do we do now, Buffy?"

Buffy sank into the chair. "I'll stay with him. You should go rest. You're probably exhausted from the spell."

Dawn hesitated. "Are you sure?"

Buffy nodded. "I'll stay with him."

* * *

Her Angel had done this. _Her_ Angel. The man who had been her first love. He'd helped support her and cared for her. He'd loved her more than anything. She'd trusted him with her life. Just thinking of him conjured images of safety, protection, love.

How could he have done _this_ to someone? Especially someone he _knew_ she cared about?

Spike remained curled up on the bed. Wrenching cries escaped him on every exhalation. Every time, Buffy had to quell the urge to reach out and comfort him.

Willow had been hiding something from her about that blood blond whatever that Angel had taken from Spike. Whatever it was, Buffy needed to know about it - later. Right now, Spike needed her. Okay, so he didn't realize he needed her, but he did, and she sure as hell wasn't going to leave him by himself. Whatever loneliness or despair he felt, she'd still be with him.

"Spike," Buffy said tentatively. "Do you recognize me?"

He shuddered, but he didn't respond. Buffy was taken with the urge to connect. Against her better judgment, she reached to touch his shoulder. He jerked away from her on contact, but she persisted.

"Spike, it's me. Buffy." Getting a grip on his shoulder, she attempted to pull him to face her.

Mistake. She'd let her guard down. He turned on the bed, then lunged into a pounce, knocking her backward onto the floor with him on top of her. His weight was heavy, and his hospital gown hung between them like a fragile barrier. His still-bandaged hands pinned her down. His newly-regrown fangs were already plunged into her throat, and he'd sucked in a mouthful of her blood before Buffy could even process what had happened.

She reacted more on instinct than anything else. Her knee jerked up into his groin. He released his grip, and his fangs withdrew from her flesh. She brought an open hand to his solar plexus and threw him back against the railing of the bed.

Buffy came up to a crouch, hand to her bleeding throat. He remained where he fell and growled at her, more animal than human.

"Spike, I don't want to hurt you," she said.

Buffy almost missed it in her own distress: his eyes wandered to the side of the room where the window was. The blinds were shut tight, of course, to protect against the sun. Just as quickly as he glanced at it, though, he looked back at her.

"Spike?"

Then he was back on his feet. He'd already made it to the window before she could stand up. The blinds were shoved to the side, exposing Spike to the full light of the sun. Smoke began to fill the room.

Buffy yelled and pulled him back. The blinds fell back into place with a rustling noise. Spike fell onto the floor, smoke still rising from his skin. Dizziness from blood loss overcame Buffy - having to stand up so quickly having taken its toll - and she collapsed onto the floor beside him.

"What do you think you're doing?" she cried out. "Why?"

All her nerves were on alert, her insides were empty. So many things she wanted to say - to yell - at him, but she couldn't find the words in her panic.

Spike was still in his demon face. He stared at the floor with his muscles slack. Lifeless. Like he'd given up.

Then he spoke to her, exercising his regenerated tongue and speaking for the first time since she'd rescued him.

"Go away."

* * *

Kennedy hefted the stake, reaffirming her iron-clad grip on it. Spike appeared to be sleeping, but she couldn't take any chances.

Buffy had called her and asked her to watch Spike. Kennedy wasn't a fool. She'd noticed the fresh bite marks on Buffy's neck as she'd left. Spike had gotten dangerous.

That was to be expected with the spell Willow had done. Though if Kennedy were completely honest, she'd admit that she wasn't surprised even without the spell. Vampires were dangerous. That's why she killed them.

Despite that, it was difficult not to feel some sympathy for this vampire. Willow hadn't chosen to elaborate on her outburst earlier. Instead, she'd gone back to their room and closed the bedroom door. Kennedy assumed she was sleeping, but she wasn't blind to the tension that had built up. There were secrets being kept. Kennedy worried when Willow did that. Her girlfriend had a tendency to take on the weight of responsibility for everyone's happiness. Kennedy wanted to alleviate that somehow.

Her cellphone rang, interrupting the still calm of the hospital room. It was Dawn. Kennedy pushed the talk button.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Buffy called and asked me to watch Spike with you. I'll be over in about an hour. I was sleeping off the spell."

Kennedy rolled her eyes. "Guess Buffy doesn't trust me with her vampire."

"What?"

"Never mind. I'll be here."

Dawn gave a curt good-bye before hanging up.

Kennedy had a great respect for Buffy, but the woman could be fussy about her loved ones. Somehow, Kennedy alone didn't pass muster for Buffy as far as watching Spike went.

She was slipping her phone into her back pocket when there was a knock on the door. Kennedy turned in her chair. A tall man with dark hair and a long leather coat stood at the entryway. He held a bouquet of flowers. Her slayer senses told her he was a vampire.

She stood, bracing her stake. "Who are you?"

He held his hands in front of him in a peaceful gesture. "Easy. My name is Angel. I'm a friend of Buffy's - and Spike's. I was concerned so I came to visit him."

Angel. The _other_ souled vampire. Kennedy looked back at her charge, who continued to face away from her, not moving.

"He's sleeping," she said. She lowered the stake.

"No problem. I just want to see how he's doing."

Angel and Spike were family, right? Maybe he could help Spike's condition. Willow had told her about Spike losing his blood bond somehow. If that was the cause of the problem, then a vampire family member would be ideal to help. It'd be a huge load of Willow's mind if Angel could fix everything.

Nodding, Kennedy stepped aside and motioned him in.

"I'll leave you two some privacy."

* * *

"What is this? An inquisition?" Buffy defensively crossed her arms as she faced both Willow and Xander.

When Xander had gotten involved, Buffy didn't know. She'd been careful to keep him away from this whole ordeal, just so she could avoid his inevitable scrutiny and judgment. Willow must have called him in as reinforcement, though. The two presented a united front to Buffy.

Indeed, the library had been cleared out. Usually, a handful of watchers would be in here studying. Now it was just the three of them.

"Did Spike bite you?" Xander's eye immediately fell to the bandaged wound on her neck. He looked about to jump from his chair.

Buffy motioned for him to remain seated. "He is extra-demony right now. We expected this, right Willow?"

Willow nodded. The redhead sagged in her seat, looking pallid and exhausted from the spell she'd done. Buffy had a feeling she shouldn't be up and active right now. This was important, though.

"So what I need to know," Buffy continued. "Is what you're holding back from me. And I know you are. Spike's behavior is...not right. So what don't you want me to know?"

Xander and Willow looked at each other, sharing one of those silent communications that Buffy had grown to hate over the years. It just served to emphasize how very distant she was from them sometimes.

Xander spoke first. "Buffy, what happened to Spike was terrible. You know I'm the last person to say it, but the guy didn't deserve _that_. But we don't want you rushing off and doing something stupid out of pity or something - "

"Why don't you tell me what the situation is before telling me what I can and can't do?"

That got him to shut up. Xander looked to Willow, conceding the floor.

Willow leaned forward heavy on her elbows. "You know Angel took away Spike's blood bond. That's a major significant thing for a vampire."

"Exactly how so?"

Willow fidgeted with one of the open texts in front of her. "Vampires are family-based. Their existence is tied to their bloodline. If they're severed from that line, they're...adrift. On an existential level."

"What she's saying," Xander interjected at Buffy's confused look. "Is that Angel basically sucked any sense of belonging from Spike."

Willow nodded. "Right. Vampires who have been cut off from their family almost always end up dusting themselves because the pain of existing alone for an eternity is too great."

Buffy blinked. "Angel did that to Spike?"

"Always knew that guy was a winner," Xander interjected.

Buffy couldn't even bring herself to defend Angel. There was nothing to defend. She'd known the blood bond thing would be difficult for Spike to overcome, but _this_...she hadn't expected this.

"So," Buffy said. "Why all the secrecy? This is stuff I _need_ to know to help Spike."

"Well, it's the helping Spike part that we're kinda...worried about..." Willow's voice trailed off and she looked to Xander for support.

"Listen, Buff, we know you want to help Spike," Xander took up the reins again. "We want to help you help Spike as much as possible. But the kindest thing you could do right now is - "

"Don't you _dare_ tell me to stake him, Xander." Buffy gritted her teeth. "There is no _way_ I would do that. Now _what_ are you hiding from me?"

With a glance, Xander handed the reins back to a reluctant Willow. It was like the two were playing an elaborate game of doubles tennis, just with Buffy's team having one person.

"Okay," Willow exhaled a worried breath. "In the past, one vampire did survive being cut off from his family. It involved entering into a bond with a human. It kinda approximates a vampire familial bond, just without the vampire family. The vampire and human are tied to each other. Forever."

Buffy nodded. She was afraid she knew what Willow was trying to tell her, but she couldn't help the embers of hope burning inside her. "And you don't want me doing this with Spike?"

"Buffy, this is, like, crazy creepo territory," Xander said. "You'd be immortal. I mean, that isn't something you do just to keep Spike from suffering."

"Right, it's something I do if I want to spend the rest of my newly eternal life with him," Buffy finished Xander's thought.

He nodded.

She got it. Why Willow had hidden this from her. It was huge - bonding with Spike. It was beyond any human commitment. It would be tying herself, eternally, to him. She'd only just decided to try a relationship with Spike about a month ago. She couldn't possibly justify jumping into something like that.

But what if it would save Spike's life?

"I'm not gonna rush into anything, guys. Right now, I just want to help Spike. And to do so, I need all the info you have." She shook her head. "I don't want to lose him again."

When she looked up, the expressions on her friends' faces were comforting. With a surrendered sigh, Buffy dropped into the chair across from the two of them. She ooched forward, setting her head down on her elbows.

Xander's calloused hand patted her arm. "We're gonna help you, Buff. Whatever you need."

Buffy nodded against the desk. She picked her head up slightly. "Tell me more about this vampire-human bond thingy."

* * *

_"Spike would much rather be dusted than go home with you."_

He'd been right. Marvin. He'd let Buffy kill him knowing that doing so would be the path to the most torment for her and Spike. Vengeance served.

Buffy had learned a new word: "claiming". An outdated ceremonial bond between two beings - usually two vampires. However, there were a couple cases of claims being made between a human and a vampire. Doing so made a link between them, not unlike the familial blood bond. This claim could possibly bring Spike back from his suicidal crisis.

But the cost of doing so? A human who entered into a claim with a vampire was made immortal. If one is killed, the other dies, too. It's a bond unlike anything she'd ever contemplated, and she knew that doing a claim with Spike now would be doing it for all the wrong reasons. She knew it, and he'd know it. Then they'd be left, stuck together for eternity without wanting to be with each other.

She couldn't possibly do that to him.

The walk down the hospital hallway took forever. Buffy hadn't been sure if she should even check up on Spike given what had happened earlier. He'd tried to get her to stake him by attacking her. Now, though, she felt better prepared to deal with him, thanks to her talk with Willow and Xander. Maybe she could alleviate his pain somehow.

When she turned the corner, she was surprised to see Kennedy sitting outside Spike's closed door. Maybe Dr. Parkes was checking on him?

"What's wrong?" Buffy asked, approaching Kennedy.

Kennedy stood. "Nothing. Angel came and wanted some time alone with him. I thought - "

"Angel?" Buffy didn't let her finish her sentence. She had already slammed the door open and darted into the room. A confused Kennedy was right behind her.

Buffy stopped as if running into a wall as she took in the scene before her. Angel stood next to Spike's bedside, hunched over with his bare arm at Spike's mouth. Spike drank from him with frantic slurping noises. Spike, himself, had bright red puncture wounds on his neck. Buffy gasped for breath.

"Stop," she said with less force than she'd intended.

Angel looked up at her entrance. He smiled. With a light touch on Spike's head, he signaled for Spike to stop drinking. Angel pulled his arm away, rolling down his sleeves.

"Wait," Kennedy said, running in front of Buffy. "Nobody _told_ me that Angel's the bad guy here."

Buffy couldn't even focus on the other slayer. She shoved her to the side.

"I warned you - " Buffy said to Angel. Her voice shook. Kennedy, wisely, remained out of the way.

"I'm helping him," Angel spread his arms out in a conciliatory gesture.

With only a couple of steps, Buffy had bridged the distance between them. She grabbed Angel by the collar and threw him against the wall, away from Spike. _Anything_ to get him away from Spike.

"What did you do?" Buffy fetched her stake from her back pocket, more than ready to use it.

"I claimed him, Buffy." Angel sounded annoyed. "It's the only way - the only thing that could help him. He's mine now. We're linked. You kill me, you kill him."

She shook her head. "Why would you 'help' him now? You're the reason he's hurt in the first place!"

"I'm just trying to make things right by you."

"By _me_?"

"What's the alternative? Were you going to claim him?"

His question had the effect of slapping her across the face. It stunned her out of her anger. No. She wasn't going to claim Spike. She couldn't. Not like this.

Her silence reverberated around the room.

"You weren't," Angel said. "So I had to. And now I'm gonna take him back to L.A. with me."

She shook her head. "Like hell you are - "

"Let me talk to her alone," Spike said, shattering the turbulent haze surrounding Buffy and Angel. Buffy turned to him, afraid of what she'd see.

Spike was back in his human face. Willow and Dawn's spell must have run its course. His gaze was lowered to his lap, though, and he refrained from making any eye contact with either Buffy or Angel. His expression was wane, and his eyes were dead. Angel might as well have driven her stake through her own heart.

Angel treated her to a cocky, knowing look. With a nod to Spike, he turned to leave.

"Buffy?" Kennedy asked, obviously not sure what she should do.

Buffy took a deep breath and motioned for Kennedy to leave.

When the door closed, Buffy crossed her arms, steeling herself for whatever was to come.

"Buffy," Spike said.

"No," she cut him off. "No, Spike, you're not going with Angel. He's the one who did this to you. I'm _not_ letting him hurt you anymore."

Spike's head shot up. He looked angry, which was at least an improvement from his earlier look of defeat. "You think I want to go with the bastard? I know exactly what he's doing, and it pisses me the fuck off."

"Then don't go." Buffy took two steps toward the bed. Not as close as she wanted to be, but closer than she dared. "Stay."

"Little late now, isn't it? He claimed me. Being separated from him will be the end of me this early on. Have to go."

"We can reverse the claim - "

"Not possible."

Buffy fell silent, at a loss for any argument to make him stay beyond, 'Because I need you to'. Spike's gaze had returned to his lap. She wanted to embrace him, have him look at her, promise her that he'll not go. Instead, she remained standing fast where she was. "Why'd you let him claim you?"

Spike startled, looking up at her.

"You let him, right?"

He nodded.

"Why?"

Spike sighed. "It's unbearable, Buffy. _This_. Being cut off. Only thing to do is dust myself, but you won't let me do that. Not even if I bite you." Buffy's hand reflexively went to the wound he'd left her. "Going with Angel, I have a better chance of offing myself than if I stay here."

His words were a brutal assault to her. She recoiled. "So you let him claim you because it'd be easier for you to _kill yourself_?"

Spike looked away. His gaze began to wander around the room like he was looking for an escape route.

"After everything - _everything_ - I've done to help you. No, before that. Letting me think you were _dead_ for almost a year, then giving me the smallest bit of hope that things could work out. Then...just let me _save_ you, Spike!"

"It's not about you, Buffy." His attention landed on the folded clothes Dawn had thought to lay out for him, just in case he was tired of the hospital gown. He remained focused on it. "Think I don't want things the way they were before? Can't do it, though. Not anymore."

"Not if you just give up and decide killing yourself is the way to fix things!"

"And what's your way to fix things?" he snapped. "You wanna claim me?"

The same question Angel had asked her. Again, she had no response.

She knew there was no alternative. She knew she was lashing out, railing against...everything. Spike wanting to die, Marvin having been right, losing him, loving him...

After a few moments of heavy silence, Spike snorted. "Yeah, course not."

"It's not like that," Buffy said, though her voice was weak. All of the fight had abandoned her, and now she was left exposed and helpless.

"Doesn't really matter the whys, does it?" Spike swung his legs over the side of the bed. Buffy's own legs went weak. He was really leaving.

"Please," she said. "Stay." She couldn't keep her words from trembling.

Spike pointedly refused to look at her. He grabbed his clothes and yanked off the sheer hospital gown. His hands shaking as he tugged his jeans on betrayed his true feelings.

Buffy closed her eyes against the onslaught, desperately hoping this was a nightmare. "I love you," she said.

When she opened her eyes, Spike stood right in front of her. His face was still hard, though his eyes glistened. He grabbed her by the back of the head and pulled her towards him to smash his lips against hers. His kiss exhausted her, taking all of her hope, her love, her strength. Connected by breath and by Spike's hand tangled in her hair, yet the chasm between their bodies remained. Buffy couldn't allow herself to cross it as the knowledge that this kiss may be the last sat heavy in the back of her mind. She couldn't allow herself to get so close when doing so would make the devastation of his pulling away that much worse. Even still, she wanted to stay in this one moment as long as possible. Too soon, he pulled away with a growl.

"I could never stop," he said.

He released his grip on her and walked past her to leave. Buffy didn't turn as the door closed behind her.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Two months later**

The cuts carved through his flesh straight down to the bone. Bright red skin peeled away to expose veins with ragged edges. His inner forearms were shredded to soggy bits.

"See? Down, not across, Spike," Angel said.

He slipped his heavy leather coat on in preparation to leave. Spike remained silently shaking in the corner. He'd thought his body had reached its limits weeks ago, but somehow Angel kept stringing him along. Every moment of seemingly generous appeasement was followed by an even more rigorous round of cruelty. That's what Angel did best, after all: The prolonged torture. Spike should have known that Angel would grant him no reprieve.

"I know why you accepted the claim, you know. You hoped that I would let you die. But I'm not gonna make it that easy for you, William. You go after my girl, you step out of line, you_will_ pay for it. Got it?"

Spike closed his eyes. Too much input. His brain couldn't process everything fast enough. It was like the world dragged through molasses, and he couldn't figure a way to keep up.

"Enjoy the quiet," Angel said as he walked to the door. "Oh wait." He flipped the switch on the wall and entered his key code afterward. The loud siren began to howl, and the lights strobed. The familiar irritants. "That's better."

Angel left.

Spike hadn't slept in over a month.

* * *

Angel hadn't been able to avoid getting blood on his shirtsleeves. In a pinch, though, his jacket would hide the stains. Wouldn't do to look unprofessional while at work.

The heavy door to the restricted area shut and lock automatically behind him. Angel continued to the lobby and paused at Harmony's desk.  
Dawn and that redhead slayer were still there, as they had been for the past two months. They'd take turns going out to get food or take showers, but they remained camped out in his lobby. He knew it was a clear message from Buffy: She planned to rescue Spike. In the meantime, she'd send Dawn and the slayer with the silly hats to keep an eye on him.

Fine. He'd hoped to settle into a more friendly relationship with Buffy, but her hysterical reaction to Spike's condition made that impossible. He'd done what he had to initially to keep Spike in his place. But this wasn't about Spike anymore. No, it was about Buffy. She hadn't understood at all about why he had sold Spike - for her. She was _angry_ at him for it. If she was going to be like that, he might as well give her a reason to be angry. Since Spike is apparently so precious to her, he'd keep him.

Harmony finished with her phone call. "Oh, boss, Malcolm faxed over that information you wanted about Developmental Control in England." She held up a manilla folder. "Do you still want me to contact the London Branch?"

Angel nodded. He took the folder from Harmony and set it to the side. He'd get one of his people to look at it. He didn't need to bother with that sort of minutiae. There were better ways of applying his time.

With a smile, Angel approached the two squatters. "Dawn," he said.

Dawn looked up from her laptop, her fingers poised above the keys. The slayer beside her straightened up.

"Got something for you to pass on to Buffy." He reached into his jacket pocket and retrieved the polaroid he'd taken. He tossed it onto her laptop's keyboard, chuckling as her wide eyes fastened to it.

"Keep up the good work," he said to the slayer.

As he walked away, he smirked. _Much_ better use of his time.

"Oh! Oh..." Vi stared at the photo over Dawn's shoulder.

Dawn's gaze remained fixed on the small picture of the brutalized Spike. She knew Angel was attempting to amp up the psychological torture - something he excelled at, soul or no.

"You don't have to actually pass it on to Buffy," Vi said.

Dawn shook her head. "She needs to know." Dawn began pulling up the camera in her phone. "Maybe it'll prod her into _doing_ something."

* * *

"Buffy, you can't actually want to do this." Giles took off his glasses in that familiar gesture of frustration.

Buffy crossed her arms in response. Giles had arrived back from his trip 'round the world not two hours ago, and he'd already - despite Buffy's wishes - been filled in on recent events. Of course, this necessitated a "talk", which seemed to have the sole effect of distracting Buffy from her plans.

"It's not that I _want_ to do this, Giles. But I'm not going to leave Spike with Angel, and this is the only way to help him."

"Have you considered that it might be more merciful to - "

"No." Buffy cut him off. "I'm not killing Spike. That's final."

Giles returned his glasses to their rightful place and sat down in the desk chair across from Buffy. He looked tired as he began to roll his sleeves down to ward off the chill of the castle. "This is very dangerous."

"Kinda in my job description."

"And you'd be leaving your post for who knows how long - "

"Giles, plenty of other slayers now. Having me out of commission temporarily isn't gonna tip the balance."

He sighed. "Tell me more about this plan."

Knowing that she had her foot in the door, Buffy relaxed. She sat down and leaned forward. "Willow said it's kinda like the mind thingy she did with me when Glory had taken Dawn. Just, over a distance, and with Spike.

"Going into Spike's mind would be..." he trailed off.

"Horrifying? Yeah, I know."

"And then, you'll be...hunting down Angel or...?"

"Locating Angel's claim and removing it. Willow says that it'll manifest in some dreamlike way. Probably a fight or maybe something wonky. Whatever. Once I have that done, we can send the slayers in to extract Spike."

"And you'll be _here_."

"Far, far away from Angel. I don't trust him not to do something to take me out while the spell's on."

Giles rubbed his forehead. "And how will you form the connection between yourself and Spike? You're on different continents."

Buffy's phone vibrated in her pocket. She raised a finger to Giles and retrieved it, flipping it open. Her stomach dropped when she saw the hastily photographed polaroid Dawn had sent her. The quality was blurred and off-center and the image was small, but she could tell that it consisted of Spike and a lot of blood. Two months had been too long. She had to get to him now.

Distracted by the picture, Buffy attempted to resume her discussion with Giles. "Um...Willow said she'd be able to do the linky thing if I had something of Spike's in my possession. We got it covered."

"What do you have of Spike's?"

Eyes still fixed to her cellphone display, Buffy's free hand traveled to her neck. Her fingers ghosted over the scarred bite wound. "He left me something while he was here."

* * *

The frigid floor tiles were smeared with Spike's dried blood. He drew his knees up to his chest, trying to keep his focus on the bloody whorl of a painting on the floor. Smatterings of deep red punctuated the canvas, each connected by streaks of crimson. His entire torture laid out on industrial tile.

Buffy was in front of him.

She laid on her back, head closest to him. She tilted her face up to peer at him upside-down. She wore a sheer sundress - something Spike couldn't remember her actually wearing before.

The incessant strobe of the light didn't fall against her. She remained constantly illuminated while the background of bloody masterpieces faded and reappeared around her. Likewise, the sound of her voice was unimpeded by the pealing sirens.

"Don't take it personally."

Of course she wasn't real. He'd seen so many of these hallucinations now, he almost couldn't keep track. His mind moved at glacial speed, only able to process the tiniest amount of input. Still, he managed to keep a steady undercurrent in his head: _Not real. Not real. Not real._

The apparition turned over and propped herself up on her elbows. The neckline of her dress dipped to the scarlet floor, tantalizing him with the anticipation of flesh. She tilted her head to the side.

"I just can't let myself be tied to a _thing_."

A sob escaped Spike. He put his head down, hoping she'd go away.

No luck. Her presence manifested beside him. Her lips were at his ear.

"I'm too good for that."

He lashed out with a growl, punching blindly at where she should be. There was nothing, of course. His swing tore at the wounds on his arm, yanking the skin apart from the scabs. New blood dripped to decorate the art project beneath him.

Spike curled inward again. Better not to move. Wounds everywhere that were in danger of being opened.


	8. Chapter Eight

"I'll admit to being concerned about all this." Giles allowed his full weight to rest against his desk. He shoved his hands into his pockets and stared at his shoes. There were too many scuff marks. The castle's fault. Walking up the stone steps led to lots of slips and trips.

"Don't blame you." Xander bounced the tennis ball onto the floor. It hit the plaster wall and bounced back. He handily caught it.

The wall was new - installed to give Giles' office an adjoining conference room. It was also one of the few walls in the castle that allowed one to bounce a tennis ball off it, hence Xander's presence in his office. The ball-bouncing was to maintain Xander's eye-hand coordination in spite of the lack of perspective the loss of his eye came with.

"She knows that this is very dangerous?" Giles continued.

"Of course." Bounce.

"And you're okay with it?"

Xander snatched the tennis ball from the air on its return and turned to face the older man. "Giles, look into my eye. I'm very much _not_ okay with what Buffy's doing. I think it's reckless and selfish and...well, it's probably bad for the environment in some way."

"I expect you're about to launch into a counterpoint now."

"Yes, indeedy. I also think Angel's being much worse, so I'm in favor of taking his Spike-shaped toy away. Plus," Xander tossed the ball again. "Once Buffy sets her mind on something, there's not much I can do to dissuade her."

Giles sighed. "I suppose you have a point, there."

* * *

Buffy's bedroom had little in the way of decoration. Dawn had bought her a couple of posters - one of N'Sync, one of a kitten - to cover the gloom of the castle walls. The N'Sync poster had been a joke. The other, an attempt to impress upon Buffy the importance of Dawn getting a cat sometime. Buffy didn't know why Dawn wasn't content with the large number of stray cats that used the castle as their shelter, but her sister insisted that having her own kitten was something special.

When she'd first met Spike again, she'd considered going kitten-shopping with him sometime so they could both give it to Dawn as a gift.

That plan had been pushed to the back-burner.

"Almost ready," Willow pulled the quilt and sheet off the bed. "Sorry. Just need to clear everything off."

"It's okay," Buffy said. She watched warily as Willow sprinkled some magical herb over the mattress.

"I know you've heard this before, but it is kinda important - and worrying. Just...Spike's mind is gonna be crazy, you know? Vampire and all. And I'm not really sure how strong the connection will end up being what with the distance." Willow struggled with a match to begin lighting the candles.

"I'll be careful."

"No, you won't. You'll do what you need to to save Spike." Willow sighed.

Buffy didn't respond. Willow was right, there. Her own safety was of secondary importance in this one. Spike was being tortured by Angel right now. She'd do whatever necessary to make this work.

"But just remember that Angel's claim is _in there_, and it's gonna be dangerous. To both of you. Okay?"

Buffy nodded.

"Right." Willow waved a hand to the bed. "Go ahead and lay down."

Flecks of sage stuck to Buffy's skin as she situated herself on her bed. She reclined, breath short in anticipation.

"Turn your head away," Willow instructed. Buffy complied.

Willow's cold fingers touched the bite mark on Buffy's neck. Buffy jerked slightly in response to the chill. "Sorry," Willow murmured. She continued to smear some oil over it, though. "This is the conduit. Close your eyes, Buffy."

Buffy allowed her eyes to fall closed. Willow's touch remained on the bite mark.

"Think about Spike. He's very far away, and yet he's right here, isn't he? You can be with him."

Buffy wanted so much to be with him. Her neck began to tingle.

"Be with him, Buffy. Now."

* * *

"I know you're not as stupid as you seem, Spike." Angel paced around the broken vampire. "You had to have known that I wouldn't just let you _kill_ yourself. No, you came because you _wanted_ to be punished. Isn't that right?"

Spike remained silent, but that wasn't unexpected. He could barely stand, after all, and his eyes kept closing. Angel hadn't let him sleep since he got here.

Angel hated this lazing around, but it was taking longer than expected to get the legal tangles smoothed out. His next step was a big one, and he wanted to be prepared. In the meantime, he had little to do except spend some quality time with Spike.

He punched Spike in the chest, sending him sailing back into the wall. Despite the force of the impact, Spike managed to keep standing. Angel had taught him well so many years ago.

"Hold out your wrists," Angel ordered.

Spike obeyed, presenting trembling arms to him. Angel glanced at the red lines criss-crossed over his wrists already. Deep gouges that revealed white bone. There wasn't much left to cut, but Angel would make do. He positioned the knife and slashed at the already tortured flesh.

Spike whimpered but stayed still. Angel moved to cut the other wrist, when Spike's body seized up. His eyes opened wide for a split second before his entire body collapsed onto the floor like a puppet with its strings cut. Angel sensed the magic running through the air.

He growled.

* * *

Dawn jumped to her feet as soon as Angel rounded the corner. Vi took her place beside her. They'd gotten the message from Buffy an hour ago that they'd started the spell. Ever since, Dawn had been on the edge of her seat, waiting for things to start exploding here. Already, a team of slayers was arriving at Wolfram & Hart to provide back-up. As soon as they received the go-ahead from Willow that the claim was gone, they'd go and take Spike out of here.

For now, though, she had to deal with Angel.

Disregarding any personal boundary etiquette, Angel stopped within two inches of Dawn's face. He towered over her in an attempt at intimidation.

It worked.

"What are you doing to him?" Angel glared.

Dawn crossed her arms, summoning a bravery that required an almost willful naivete to the danger Angel represented. "Maybe you just wore him out."

Angel attempted to stare her down, but she didn't budge. She hoped he didn't notice her legs trembling.

"Buffy's doing something, isn't she?" He leaned forward.

"Hey," Vi grabbed his arm. "_Buffy_ won't be too happy if she hears you're acting threatening towards her sister, you know."

Angel never took his eyes off Dawn. "Yeah," he said, lowering his gaze to travel down and up her body. "She wouldn't like that one bit."

After a pause, he stepped back, though Dawn wasn't dumb enough to think that he was relenting. He spread his hands out.

"Good play, whatever it is," he said. "She will regret it, though."

* * *

Willow drew the covers up further on Buffy's unconscious body. It was chilly in the castle. Willow wasn't sure if Buffy would feel the cold where she was, but it couldn't hurt to have her covered properly.

The spell had been difficult. The distance made it almost unfathomable, but Willow's growing connection to the earth allowed her to make it happen. When she'd done the trance before, she'd required line of sight with Buffy to enter her mind. Now, she took advantage of the living underground of the planet to channel the psyche across continents. It was risky and could very easily go horribly wrong. She'd known there was no way of talking Buffy out of it, though.

She'd been careful to go over all the potential risks with Buffy. Depending on what happened in Spike's mind, Buffy could wind up with brain damage or, worse, a shock to her system could kill her. They'd established an exit word that Buffy was to use in order to break out of the trance. She'd have little control over the situation other than that, though. In Spike's mind, he would make the rules.

Willow was long out of the practice of making judgments about Buffy's love life. Instead, she had decided on a strategy of unconditional support for her friend. If that involved doing crazy spells to rescue a doomed vampire, then...well, she'd do it.

She sat down in the worn armchair Buffy had dragged into her room. Besides the dresser and night table, it was the only other furniture in the room. Buffy only put forth a half-hearted effort to make the castle her home. This involved a lot of half-completed decorating projects or sparse pictures hanging on the walls (with sticky tack because, you know, stone). She'd never fully settled down, though. Not like everybody else had. Willow and Xander even travelled a whole lot more than Buffy, but their rooms were decked out.

Willow pulled her laptop out of her bag and turned it on. She had a trip to Somalia coming up, and she still needed to make sure all the arrangements were made. Travelling into the middle of a country-wide conflict was never fun, but a coven of witches apparently had found a Slayer. So she had to go, not matter what the political situation.

She glanced back up at Buffy's still body briefly before turning to her preparations.

* * *

Dawn couldn't help it. Her eyes kept wandering over to Angel's office in anticipation of..._something_.

The slayers had arrived in full force, and Rona and Vi were now deliberating on their options. No sign of Angel, though. It had been hours since he'd threatened them. Dawn had never been one to stand around, waiting for the head's up from Buffy. She was a woman of action, after all.

Knowing that this could spectacularly backfire, Dawn approached Harmony's desk. The vampire was doing a final make-up check before leaving for the day.

"Harmony," Dawn greeted her.

Harmony looked at her suspiciously. "I'm not supposed to talk to you."

"Aren't you worried about Spike? You know Angel's hurting him, right?"

Harmony flinched, eyes traveling to the locked corridor where Spike was being held. "Listen, Angel knows what he's doing, alright? I'm not supposed to get involved."

She stood up, shrugged her purse strap onto her shoulder and moved around the desk. Dawn blocked her exit.

"Where _is_ Angel? I haven't seen him in a while. He's not in with Spike."

"Move," Harmony said. "You're in my way."

Dawn remained where she was. "I'm just worried about Spike - "

Harmony rolled her eyes. "God, this isn't all about Spike, okay? Get over him. _I_ have. And so's Angel."

She shoved Dawn into the desk, clearing her path. While Dawn struggled to maintain her balance, Harmony walked to the elevators, her heels clacking on the tiled floor.

Dawn frowned. She straightened up. The items on the desk had been knocked out of place, but she didn't care.

"Did she hurt you? What was that all about?" Rona approached her.

Dawn shook her head. "This isn't good, I don't think."

As if her words prompted it, the lights flickered off. Dawn looked up in surprise. Along with the lights, the steady hum of the air conditioning faded out.

"They cut the power," Vi said. "How cliche is that?"

Dawn grabbed her phone from her pocket. The screen stayed black. "They didn't just cut the power. They did something that shorted out all electronics. Check your phones."

While the slayers did that, Dawn jogged to the locked corridor in the hopes that it might be open now. No such luck. She sighed and turned around. Rona shook her head.

"No phones are working. We're trying the elevators, but the door to the stairwells are locked," she said.

"Why lock us in?" Vi asked. "What's the point?"

Things began to come together in Dawn's head. "He's keeping us from contacting home base." Crap. "He's afraid we're gonna warn them."

"Warn them?" Vi asked.

"Yeah. Angel's not after Spike anymore. He's after Buffy."


	9. Chapter Nine

Buffy was in the middle of an old-fashioned living room. Well, this wasn't what she'd been expecting when going into Spike's mind.

She knew little about the different historical periods, but she could tell that this was most likely Victorian. Probably from Spike's human life. Everything looked pristine and undisturbed. Except the lighting. Though the room was outfitted with oil lamps, it looked as though fluorescent lights were casting their unearthly glow over the room. In the dead silence, she could almost hear the steady hum.

"Spike?" Buffy called. Of course, it wouldn't be that easy.

Her attention was drawn to a photo on one of the ornate side tables. She picked it up. Posed stiffly was an older women sitting in front of a young, bespectacled man. William as he once was.

All things began here.

Buffy gently set the photo back onto the table. As she pulled her hand away, she noticed the bright splash of red across her palm. She rubbed her fingers together, testing the texture. It was blood. It looked starkly wild under the fluorescent lighting.

Once she began seeing the blood, it appeared everywhere. It covered the table that carried the photo. The floor had wide arcing sweeps of blood dancing across it. The walls displayed crude hand prints stamped in blood. The sofa was stained deep red.

Buffy wanted out of the room. _Now_

There was a closed door on the opposite side of the room. Without hesitation, Buffy pushed it open and entered the foyer. She froze as the door shut behind her.

A woman's body lay on the floor. Her nightgown was ripped, and her legs were splayed open to display the grotesque injury to her private parts. It was the woman from the photo. Her eyes were still open, wide with panic. They stared up at where the fluorescent lights should be but weren't.

Buffy swallowed. Not real. It wasn't real. Okay, so it was probably a scene from Spike's human life, but she already knew that he'd probably brutally murdered his family when he'd been turned. That was standard vampire operating procedure. So no big shock to actually be confronted with it, right?

Taking a breath, Buffy eased her way around the corpse to the front door. She pushed the door open to take in some fresh air.

And she ended up in Spike's crypt. His old crypt from Sunnydale. That was jarring.

Buffy looked around. She was on the upper level. The TV had been left on, but it was only broadcasting static. The fluorescent lighting was gone. Instead the crypt was almost completely dark. Only a soft glow permeated the room to allow her to see.

"Spike?" she called again.

"Down here."

Spike's voice came from the lower level. Buffy hurried over and down the ladder. When she turned, she was presented with Spike and herself in his bed.

Well, with Spike's mental version of herself. She knew that scene had never played out in real life. Her with long hair, naked and curled up next to him. She was sleeping.

Spike watched her, apparently unfazed by another Buffy appearing.

"What's the matter, love?"

"Spike, I need to find Angel. He's claimed you, so he should be around here. Somewhere."

Spike laughed. "Angel's been all around this place, you know. You _do_ know."

"No, really don't."

A clattering sounded from the darkness beyond the bed. Spike didn't even flinch. Buffy had the uncomfortable sensation that someone was approaching. It was like her slayer senses turned up to eleven. Her skin crawled.

"Spike, _you_ know this is all in your head, right?"

"Isn't everything?"

She frowned, not sure how to reply to that. She was saved the effort, though, when Angel emerged from the darkness. His mouth was smeared with blood.

"William, you _know_ I don't like it when you're here."

This made Spike sit up. "Leave her alone this time, Angel! She's just trying to sleep."

"She's gotta learn what happens when she sleeps next to the likes of you." Angel went straight to the sleeping Buffy and wrapped his hands around her neck. The mattress shifted under his weight, and Spike had to lean backward to keep from falling over.

Seeing Angel choking her spurred Buffy into action. She rushed forward, grabbing his shoulder. "Why don't you try that with the real me?" she asked.

Angel laughed at her, but he didn't relax his grip. "Sorry, Buffy. This isn't your place, and I'm afraid I have the controls here. Why don't you go somewhere more suited to you?"

Always having been a fan of getting straight to the fight, Buffy pulled back her arm to punch him when the crypt disappeared around her. The next second found herself in her old home on Revello Drive.

Buffy looked around at the long-destroyed living room. This was going to be more difficult than she'd thought.

The house was completely silent. Buffy's memories of her house always included _sounds_: her mother watching her soaps, her sister talking on the phone to Janice, a demon trying to get in the front door. There was none of that. Only a haunting hush.

The silence became an imposing figure in its own right, and Buffy was reluctant to disturb it. Her footsteps might be too loud, too intrusive. Who knows how the house of Spike's mind might react?

However, she had to keep going forward...wherever forward was.

A moan cut through the stillness. Buffy jumped, turning towards the kitchen. The air was thick when she started walking, as if she were attempting to maneuver through syrup. She stopped at the doorway.

Drusilla lay on the kitchen island. A large hole had been cut into her abdomen, revealing pulsing internal organs. Something sizzled on the stove.

Drusilla laughed. "Saw you coming!"

Why was Spike's mind putting Drusilla in her kitchen?

Buffy had to shrug the question off. Not important. She only hoped that Spike's version of Drusilla had some of the same abilities that the real Drusilla had.

She walked to the island and leaned down to look Drusilla in the eye. The vampire turned her head toward her.

"Dru," Buffy said. "Do you know how to undo Angel's claim? Do I have to fight him?"

Drusilla lowered her hand into the wound at her midsection. "I can feel my stomach," she said with a grin.

Whatever was on the stove started to burn. Black smoke billowed through the kitchen.

"Dru, this is important."

"Ooooh," Drusilla's eyes lit up. Her gaze wandered up to the ceiling. "Better run, little girl. Daddy's come back to have his meal. Only one way out, and he's not it."

Buffy sighed in frustration. "Do you at least know where Spike is? I need to find him."

Drusilla brought a finger to her mouth and licked her own blood from it. "My William doesn't like to see what's done to his mummy. Stays far away, he does. But he needn't fret." She glanced over at the pan on the burner. "It always grows back."

Buffy straightened, convinced that she wasn't going to get anything useful from this particular figment. Drusilla giggled as Buffy turned around.

Angel stood right behind her.

Buffy froze. Her slayer reflexes weren't kicking into gear. Instead, a deep terror settled into her stomach and rooted her to the spot.

Angel smiled. "Buffy, I was just looking for you."

Buffy panicked - something she wasn't very familiar with. Adrenaline rushed through her, and she turned and ran for the back door.

Behind her, Drusilla yelled, "His world now! No place to run!"

Buffy felt as if she was caught in a slasher movie. She wasn't sure why she ran - why she was so frightened. The script told her to do so, so she did. Running in mindless fear led her down Revello Drive and straight into the cemetery. Spike's mind was rearranging things.

Slasher movie or no, Buffy knew better than to look behind her. Angel was right on her heels. Having visual confirmation wasn't necessary. She sensed him as readily as she sensed her own arms. Instead, she went straight to the first mausoleum she could find and pried open the door. Because it's always best to trap yourself in a small space with no exit when being chased by a monster.

She ran into the structure and ended up in a living room. Buffy paused, disoriented.

She'd never seen the room before. Despite its expansive floorplan and refined decor, the lack of windows gave away the fact that it was underground. A huddle of couches and armchairs sectioned off a square in the middle of the room. On one of the sofas sat herself - another Buffy - flipping through a magazine. Buffy's entrance prompted the double to look up with a bright smile not unlike those the bot used to give.

"Hello!"

Buffy frowned. Why had she been running? She needed to fight Angel, not run from him. Somehow, Spike's mind was affecting her. Willow hadn't warned her about that.

The other Buffy lowered the magazine. "Have you seen Angel? I'm waiting for him to get home."

So what part of Spike's mind was _this_? Photos on the wall featured herself and Angel together - a happy couple. This must be one of Spike's fears.

"Don't you love Angel? He's just the greatest."

Buffy finally directed her attention to the bizarro version of herself. Yep. Very bot-like. Except this one was programmed to love Angel instead of Spike.

Buffy approached the sitting area. "Where _is_ Angel?" she asked, hoping to get more answers out of her than she had out of Drusilla.

"Oh, he'll be here soon. He never lets me down, you know."

"What about Spike? Have you seen him?"

Bizarro Buffy made a face. "Spike? He's beneath me."

Basement. At least, Buffy hoped Spike's mind was being that literal. A door on the far side of the living room began to pulse in her senses. If that wasn't a sign...

Behind her, a key started turning in the lock. Angel was coming home.

Disregarding the Stepford version of herself, Buffy ran across the room and threw open the door, not surprised to find a dark staircase leading downwards. She'd be a better match for Angel if she could get Spike working with her.

Not glancing back, she ran down the stairs, plunging into darkness. She kept her hand on the wall in the hopes of finding a lightswitch. No such luck.

Layers of dust began to coat her fingers as she trailed them along the wall. The air became damp, and the wall started moistening.

She stumbled when she reached the bottom, hindered by the lack of light. Buffy finally pulled her hand away, ignoring the coat of muck that clung to her fingertips. She began to reach for a cord when the lights switched on. Buffy closed her eyes against the sudden burst of brightness.

When she squinted them open, she found herself in the middle of Angel's office - the one from Wolfram & Hart. Angel, himself, stood at her arrival. Conspicuously out of place was a young woman in Victorian garb sipping tea on the sofa.

Angel came around his desk, smiling broadly.

"Buffy!" he said. "I was wondering when you'd be by."

Buffy's muscles remained tense, her stance on guard as Angel approached her.

"Do you want some coffee?" Angel asked with a casual ease that belied their current situation.

"What is this?" Buffy replied.

Angel sighed. "Always straight to business. Even when I'm _trying_ to be friendly."

"Are you the claim?"

Angel laughed. "Is that what you're in here for? No, I'm not 'the claim'. Well, I mean, I'm here _because_ of the claim. I am the mental manifestation of Angel's presence in Spike's mind now. The claim itself? That doesn't have any substantial form."

Buffy frowned. "But Willow said - "

"I hate to break it to you, Buff, but your darling Willow is sometimes wrong." He sighed in mocking sadness. "So, coffee?"

Of course, Angel could be lying to her. If killing him was the way to break the claim, then misleading her would be an appropriate self-defense mechanism. On the other hand, he was right. Willow _was_ sometimes wrong.

Buffy's attention wandered to the woman on the couch. She continued to sip at her tea, seemingly oblivious to the confrontation between Buffy and Angel. Maybe - crazy thought - maybe the amazingly out-of-place Victorian lady was the claim.

"She's not," Angel said.

Buffy's attention snapped back to him. He appeared to have given up on the coffee and, instead, stood with his hands behind his back, head cocked to the side in amusement.

"She's not 'the claim'," Angel repeated. He sat down in an armchair. The plush seat cushion lowered slightly with his weight. "She's just a guest. Sit." He motioned to the couch across from him. "Take a load off."

Buffy cautiously sat down. Even if he was lying, trying to get some answers couldn't hurt. Whatever he was, he seemed to be intricately linked into Spike's mind. That was useful.

She quickly decided on a question. "This is what the claim does? Invades one person's mind?"

"This is what _this_ claim does," Angel corrected. "Spike's pretty much surrendered, you know. That makes his mind one big playground for me."

"Is this like a psychic thing? Are you actually Angel?"

"Nothing so ominous." Angel rolled his eyes. "I'm not like you. Angel in the real world is going about doing...whatever he's doing. The claim, though, lets another person into your mind. Part of their self merges with yours. In Spike, that part of Angel is me." He smiled. "Not so complicated, is it?"

"So killing you...?"

"Won't do a damn thing. You are kind of slow, aren't you? You can't _kill_ me. It's not possible. You can't break the claim. Also not possible." Angel leaned back. "You're wasting your time, in other words. You'd be best off calling out your safe word and going back to the real world." He shrugged. "Just my advice."

Buffy wasn't stupid. No matter what this particular figment was, trying to dissuade her from exploring further was advantageous to Angel. That meant that that's the one thing she _didn't_ want to do. And she must be getting close to _something_ if Angel was stepping in.

She shook her head and offered up a bright smile. "Sorry, Angel. I'm enjoying the scenery too much to leave now."

Angel's expression darkened. "Well, then, I'll leave you to it. I hope you enjoy the next stop on the tour."

The office around her faded. Buffy had to jump up from her seated position as the sofa she'd been sitting on vanished. With a gradual fade-in, Glory's tower appeared in front of her. The sun hung low on the horizon, casting its first rays on her broken body as it lay on the debris. Her friends gathered around, frozen in time so they stood like distraught mannequins.

The only movement - the only sign of life - came from her right side. Spike was crouched on the ground, blood trailing down his face as he openly weeped.

Buffy had not witnessed this scene, herself. Not _this_ scene. She'd never seen her own body sprawled on the wreckage of the tower, peaceful expression on her dead face. She'd never seen Dawn hunched over in tears or Willow having to be supported by Tara. Giles' grim countenance hovered on the brink of anguish. All of them frozen as statues as if time had stopped. Buffy stood, seemingly suspended in time along with them. The only movement was from Spike, whose tears had not abated.

She'd never known what it had been like...after.

"That's not me, you know."

The voice startled her out of her gloom. She turned to find Spike - another Spike - leaning against the tower. He nodded towards himself.

"Him," he clarified. "Well, I suppose he _is_ me. But not _me_ me. If that makes any sense at all."

"Spike?" Had she actually found him? The real him, not some watered-down figment version? She approached him with caution. "You're - "

"The real deal? Near as I can tell. Now what I can't figure is what you're doing in here. Assuming you're the real deal, as well."

"I am." She nodded. "I'm...trying to help. Willow told me I could disable Angel's claim from inside your mind."

Spike barked in laughter. "She what? Pull the other one."

Buffy gritted her teeth. "Listen, this is kinda experimental territory, but it's _something_, okay? I'm trying to save you!"

"I never asked you to." Spike straightened up, pulling away from the tower's support. He stepped toward her. "Don't recall asking for your help at all."

"Well, you can't expect me to just walk away, can you? I can't sit around in England knowing that Angel is - " Her voice caught in her throat.

Spike's anger was palpable. "You got over my death one time. I'm sure you can do it again."

"You're not dead!"

"Yeah, not _my_ choice there!"

"Spike, you can't just _give up_."

"Yes, I bloody well can!" Spike threw his arms up in frustration, gesticulating in dramatic fashion. He paced around Giles to approach her. "I've gone round the bend on this one, and I don't fancy going much farther. Loved you so long - _too_ long. Got my soul, though I'm not sure what type of good _that's_ done. The First almost had me, but you kept me going the rest of that year. Stayed for you, didn't I? Then I die, fine. About damn time, if you ask me. But no, I have to get brought back and thrown in with an Angel whose own soul is getting all dirtied up. Thought I had one last chance at things with you, but that ended up a bust - like usual. So you know what? I'm done trying. Done enough of that, and it's never gotten me anywhere. And I don't need you fighting for me, either. Nothing left to fight for. Got it?"

Spike ended his tirade only inches from her, jaw set firm and eyes shining with ire. Buffy had to force herself not to blink, not to pull away from his anger. She wanted to, though, and the ensuing silence at that moment was overwhelming, broken only by the other Spike's open sobs.

She got it. Her heart ached _because_ she got it. She knew everything that Spike had been through in the past few years was too much for anyone to deal with. Of course he wanted to give up - to rest. He'd been ready to do so since he'd gotten his soul back, hadn't he? The image of him draped over a cross, asking if they could rest flashed before her. Then later, him opening his shirt to have her stake him after they'd discovered the people he'd killed while under control of The First. He'd been ready to be rid of this world long ago, and he'd only kept going for her. Because he loved her.

Buffy got it. And yet...

She got angry. "No," she said. Softly at first. Then with more confidence. "_No_." She closed the small gap that was left between them. "I have lost so many people. So. Many." Tears began to run down her cheeks, but she didn't care. She couldn't stop them. "They leave me. And I _can't_ do it again. Not with you. I need you, Spike. Please." She reached out to touch his face. "_Please_. I know I'm asking..._everything_ from you. But this is different from the past, Spike. _I'm fighting for you now_. I'm fighting so hard. I believe in you. Just, please. Please believe in me, too."

Spike's expression shifted from anger to incredulity then to a reluctant affection. The fire left his eyes, but a glow of endless love remained alongside the pained resignation. She knew what she was asking. She was asking him to keep fighting when he'd already given so much. She couldn't not do so, though. Memories of being left behind - by her dad, by Angel, by Riley, by Giles - remained raw and menacing. She knew that losing Spike would be the final blow. The thought terrified her.

Buffy's fingertips touched his cheek. She smiled at the feel of his cool flesh, comforting and reassuring. So familiar and so longed for. She cupped his face with her palm, indulging in the connection.

"Can't you just...imagine what things could be like for us?" Buffy whispered.

Spike exhaled in a heavy sigh.

"Yes," he said.

Then the world around them fell away.


	10. Chapter Ten

"Spike, have you seen my other shoe?" Buffy tossed the hairbrush back onto the counter before bending down to continue her search.

"Shoe? Just _one_ shoe? How do you lose _one_ shoe? They come in pairs, you know," he called from the living room. Buffy assumed he was looking out there.

She rolled her eyes. Under the bed were some shoeboxes filled with photos (She had to come up with a better system. Maybe scan them all in like Holly kept telling her to), dust bunnies (must vacuum), a stray slipper (just the one), and an empty bottle of flavored lube (well, _that_ was embarrassing). The other half of her super-cute pair of strappy, dressy sandals was not there.

Buffy was standing up as Spike entered, dangling said sandal from his finger. Buffy grabbed it.

"Where was it?"

"Between the couch and the wall."

She tried to refrain from smiling as she began to put the shoe on while standing on one foot. She bounced slightly as she worked the strap. "Ah, yeah. Last time I wore these, we kinda..."

"On the couch."

"Yep."

Buffy successfully finished putting on the shoe and straightened up, smoothing out her Little Black Dress as she did so.

"Next time," Spike said. "_Whenever_ it may be, you'll just have to do a nice little striptease for me so you can put your clothes away properly."

"Whatever," Buffy said. She grabbed Spike's arm to turn him back to the door. "If you want a striptease, all you have to do is ask. Now come on. We don't wanna be late to our own party."

* * *

Willow's nervous nailbiting had worn the nail ragged on her pointer finger. Her bottom teeth teased at the flaking layers as she paced back and forth in front of Buffy's comatose body. Buffy had been under for far longer than Willow had anticipated. This didn't bode well.

Willow jumped when the door behind her opened. She sighed in relief when Xander entered with a bag of fast food.

"No progress?" Xander asked, nodding towards Buffy.

Willow shook her head. "And nothing from Dawn, either."

Xander set the bag down on the night table and started sorting out food. One packaged burger for him. One box of processed pseudo-chicken meat for Willow. Fries for each.

"How long has it been?" Xander asked.

"Uh...fifteen hours. I'm gonna have to get Dr. Parkes to set Buffy up on an IV if this goes on much longer." Despite her grumbly stomach, Willow wasn't hungry. However, Xander had gone to the trouble of getting food, which was not a trivial task considering their location. She might as well eat.

Willow pulled over one of the hijacked dining room chairs. Xander's phone rang. He rolled his one eye as he answered it.

"Yeah?" After a few seconds, Xander straightened up, looking surprised. "Uh huh. Really?" He paused. His eye fell on Willow. "Okay, right. Be right there."

"What is it?" Willow asked.

Xander tossed his burger back on the table. "That was Giles. Angel's here, and he brought his lawyers."

Willow started to stand, but Xander waved at her. "You stay here and watch Buffy. Giles is sending Kennedy with a contingent of Slayers to help protect her."

"If Angel's here, where's Spike?" Willow asked.

"Don't know, but we'd have heard from Dawn if anything was happening over there. Wonder why she didn't give us a warning."

* * *

Taking charge of the situation, Dawn had divided the slayers into two teams. She had assigned Vi's team to find a way _out_ of the building. With the elevators down and the doors to the stairwells locked, they were stuck on this floor.

Rona's team had been charged with figuring out a way to break into the secured area to get to Spike.

Angel appeared to have cleared Wolfram & Hart of its employees, so at least they didn't have to contend with any enemy combatants. However, they were thoroughly trapped, and Dawn needed to contact home base so as to warn them that Angel was on his way.

With a sigh, Dawn watched as two slayers applied brute force to the door to the secured area. Rona was scavenging for something that could be used as a crowbar.

Vi walked over to Dawn. "Windows aren't breakable," she said. "And I'd thought we might get out through the air vents cause you see it all the time in movies, but they're actually really small, so that option's out. We're seeing if we can get to the elevator shaft somehow."

Dawn nodded. "Good. Phones still down, I'm guessing?"

"Yeah. Angel was thorough."

Overhearing their conversation, Rona looked over. "Is he going after Buffy?"

Dawn nodded. "Probably. And with her being in that trance, she can't defend herself."

Vi smiled. "Well, there's always Willow."

* * *

Xander arrived on the scene with a cordial smile on his face. "So," he said loudly to interrupt the ongoing argument. "What's going on, guys?"

Xander's role in the new slayer organization required him to be something of a rennaissance man. He helped with training, with recruiting, with complaints, and he also had studied up on a lot of the legal issues. They hadn't yet found a lawyer willing to represent them, so in the face of a legal attack such as this, Xander was the front man.

Angel and Giles stood squared off in the middle of the entryway. A band of suited lawyers flanked Angel, each of them armed with a brown briefcase. Giles was reinforced with his own passel of slayers.

"Angel," Xander stood next to Giles. "Didn't expect to see you here. Thought you were busy torturing Buffy's newest boyfriend."

"Are you the big guns?" Angel replied. "Guess Giles is showing his age."

"Look who's talking," Giles mumbled.

"Fill me in," Xander said. "What's with the invasion of the notary publics?"

Angel held out a hand behind him. One of his lawyers obediently provided him with a manilla folder. He passed it on to Xander.

"If you'd take a look at these, your organization is occupying this castle without the proper ownership rights. A claim exists from one Liam V. Gardener, from 1734. His kin are asserting their rights to the estate. What's more, you're in clear violation of several building codes. Finally, we need to get a surveyor out here. Depending on which burrough you fall into, this large amount of young girls could qualify you as a brothel, and you are _not_ up to code for that."

Xander glanced through the very official-looking paperwork. "Uh huh. Right. And we know that you're really using all this to get to Buffy, so why not cut to the chase?"

Angel smiled. "Produce Ms. Summers or Wolfram & Hart's London division will make life very difficult for you."

"She's busy," Xander said smoothly. "Now what _I_ can't figure, is what your end game is in this. You know Buffy's not gonna forgive you. Bringing out the legalese and trying a spot of coercion really isn't gonna persuade her more than your insipid sweet talk would."

Angel sighed. He backed up a step. "Ladies, due to this organization's violation of the Building Regulations Approved Document Part B1, we have no choice but to clear this establishment. If everybody would please exit the castle, we'll have additional personnel arriving shortly to complete our inspection!"

The slayers looked confused. The younger ones began to move for the front door, only to stay put when the more veteran slayers held firm. Xander whispered to Giles: "This isn't looking good. They've got enough pull to put us through the legal wringer."

Giles turned away from Angel. "Have the girls clear out, but keep the guard on Buffy. His focus is on her, but I doubt even Angel would try to mess with Willow."

* * *

"They're starting an evacuation?" Willow frowned as she brushed the last of the salt off the table. The fast food bag had been dumped on the floor for later disposal. Just because there was a crisis didn't mean she could mess up Buffy's room.

Kennedy nodded. She'd come armed with her favorite crossbow. Willow seemed to recall she'd named it Thor. "At Angel's orders. Giles and Xander are complying. Apparently, they've got enough dirt on us to pull it off."

"But we're staying here?"

"Absolutely. I mean, Buffy's not going anywhere, and we're protecting Buffy."

Willow looked over at her trance-ridden friend. This had been going on far too long for Willow's liking. Buffy's nutritional needs - especially if she were exerting herself - required attention. Unfortunately, calling in Dr. Parkes was not an option now.

"Who else is staying?" Willow asked.

"Just you, me, Brittany, and Sundus. They're experienced, though."

They were. Brittany had been recruited almost immediately after their defeat of The First. The girl had been eager to leave her small town high school and join up with the slayers, and she picked up on the job with a passion. Sundus had arrived from Syria. She'd actually been in the care of a watcher for most of her life. She'd gone into hiding when The First had began its reign of terror. As soon as she realized she had slayer powers, she had sought out the new slayer organization. They were two of the best slayers on the base.

"Okay," Willow exhaled. "But I'm the big gun."

"As always." Kennedy put a hand on her shoulder and leaned over to kiss her cheek. "But remember: We can't kill the guy until Buffy gets rid of his claim on Spike."

"Great."

* * *

Dawn sat at Harmony's desk, sifting through the mountain of papers and folders. The computer may be off, but that didn't mean Dawn couldn't snoop around for information. Unfortunately, most of it was mundane and unhelpful, accounting Wolfram & Hart's various cases. Nothing that might help her with their current situation.

"We got the elevator doors open." Vi ran over to Dawn, skidding to a stop in front of the desk. "No actual, you know, elevators, but we can get down the shaft and, hopefully, get out of this no-call zone they've put on the place."

Dawn shoved the latest dead-end folder to the side. "Send two girls. I want the rest working on getting to Spike."

"Have you even managed to budge the door?" Vi asked Dawn as she watched Rona pry at the door with a piece of metal railing.

"Nope."

"You wanna lend a hand, feel free," Rona said while breathing heavy.

* * *

This certainly hadn't been Buffy's plan. She and Spike had been banking on a quiet, introspective fiftieth anniversary party along together. However, Holly, Jamie, and the others had insisted on a slayer-style celebration. After some resistance, Buffy had decided to let them do it so long as she didn't have to do any of the planning.

The girls had decorated one of the training rooms, stringing up cheesy banners and streamers. The twenty year old stereo sat in the corner, blasting the current hits. A row of fold-out tables had been brought in, covered with a paper tablecloth, and then topped with a variety of foods: some homemade, others store-bought. It looked like they had relied on the potluck system.

It was almost unbearably lame, and Buffy couldn't help but love it all.

"I made the red velvet cake," Holly grabbed Buffy by the hand as soon as she entered. It never escaped Buffy's notice how much Holly looked like her mother. Dawn Summers lived on.

Dawn had had Holly later in life without any entangling marriage. Buffy had initially disapproved, of course. Dawn was persuasive in her reasoning, though, and she'd succeeded in pointing out that Holly would never lack for family with the slayer organization around her. Buffy had grudgingly accepted Dawn's choice, and then had grown to adore Holly, as was to be expected. When Dawn became ill, Buffy had taken over most of the parenting duties for Holly, who was then a teenager. Buffy knew what it was like to lose a mother at a young age. She was determined that Holly would get as much support as possible. Both Buffy and Spike had focused their energies on helping Holly through those first painful years without Dawn Summers.

That's why Buffy hadn't minded stepping back and letting Holly organize this shindig. She knew Holly liked to be able to give back to them from time to time.

Buffy and Spike were quickly separated, each being pulled to different crowds that continually shifted and merged. Buffy spent some time with the newest slayers, all of whom looked at her with an unnerving wonderment. Buffy knew that tall tales had sprung up revolving around both her and Spike. She tried to tamp down on them. Reality was sufficiently impressive, after all. It was hard to stop the gossip mill, however, and so Buffy found herself being a object of awe for the new girls.

After the hero-worship reached new heights of uncomfortableness, Buffy gravitated to Xander's son, Alex, and his new wife. Xander had long been taken from them, killed in combat. Buffy consoled herself that Xander would have been inspired by his own heroic death. Alex carried on the family name well.

It wasn't long before Buffy was finally reunited with Spike when they reached the watchers' corner. Excusing themselves from any more mingling, Buffy and Spike separated out from the others.

Spike wore his suit well, and Buffy felt herself flush when he smiled at her. The bleached look of old had been phased out. Spike always teased that she had domesticated him. She knew it wasn't true. Spike was far from domesticated, and she preferred it that way.

"Enjoying our anniversary, love?" Spike handed her another drink. It was regular punch. So many of the girls were underage, after all.

"Actually, I am." Her hand quickly found his and squeezed. "Best one yet."

"Dunno. Hard to top that one with the Yagal demon."

Buffy snorted. "Not so hard when I'm the one who ended up covered in the orange slime." That had been their sixteenth anniversary. She remembered it well. The romantic dinner. The demon interruption. The restaurant attempting to bill _them_ for the damages afterward. Oh yes, and the dry-cleaning bills.

Spike bent down and kissed her cheek in response. Then he brushed his lips against the claim mark on her neck.

A loud crackle of static sounded through the room. Everybody quieted as the whine of electric feedback punctured the party. Buffy grimaced.

"Sorry!" Holly spoke into a microphone at the front. She moved away from the stereo to reduce the feedback. "Sorry. That was loud. Oh! So's this. Well, I guess it's working."

Some of the younger girls giggled. Buffy leaned against Spike's side as his arm wrapped around her waist.

"Uh...you all know why we're here. Buffy and Spike are kinda like our figureheads, and we need to celebrate when they reach a milestone like the big five oh."

The girls cheered.

"Now, Spike said he wanted a chance at the mike, so let me pass it on to him."

Buffy turned to Spike with a quizzical look, but he just smiled. He moved away from her side to take the microphone from Holly.

"Thanks," he said. "To all of you. And to Buffy." He turned to address her. The rest of the room faded away. "For giving me a home. Without you, I would be so lost. And that's - "

Spike faltered as Buffy felt herself drop out of place. With a lurch, her mind snapped back to itself, and she looked around in astonishment. This - the party, the last fifty years - this wasn't _real_.

When her eyes met Spike's she saw that he'd come to the same realization. Around her, the party-goers remained attentive, oblivious to Spike's panicked pause.

Spike looked down at the mike in his hand. "This is..."

"...what things could be like for us," Buffy finished, echoing the words that had prompted this illusion of their future life.

* * *

While Kennedy hadn't relaxed her grip on her crossbow, she had allowed herself to rest against the door. Standing at alert for who knows how long wouldn't do anything except tire her out. She didn't know if trouble was coming, but she wanted to be prepared if it did. Last time, she'd made a serious error and had allowed Angel in to see Spike. Not this time.

She heard him before she saw him. Angel walked around the corner, flanked by men in suits. Despite the lack of weaponry, it seemed as if a small army were approaching down the corridor.

"Hello again," Angel said.

Kennedy didn't reply, but she smiled. She had been hoping for a rematch.

"You must've missed it, but we've been ordered to evacuate the building. Building violations. You understand," Angel continued, speaking casually. He stopped barely a foot away from her, waiting for her to leave. That wasn't likely to happen.

"Yeah, well I've got different orders. This room is off-limits." She jerked her head to the side. "Move along."

Angel glanced back at his lawyers. "You really want to start something with me?"

"Why not? I've heard you got your ass kicked by a slayer before."

"Let me guess: There's two more of you on the other side of the door, waiting in Buffy's living room should you fall. Then Willow - big bad witch - is the last line of defense until Buffy. How close am I?"

"Seems to me that you're still two doors away."

Angel nodded. "Right."

He turned his back to her, then, as if to leave. With that feint, he whirled back around, throwing a punch at her jaw. With his vampire speed, he succeeded in catching her by surprise, and she slammed against the door. She managed to remain standing, though, and she brandished her crossbow in response.

Angel smiled, arms extended in a gesture of enjoyment. "I'm tired of all this bureaucracy, aren't you?"

* * *

Willow knew the moment Angel entered Buffy's living room. She balled her fists tightly. That meant he had gotten past Kennedy. Somehow.

It was the lingering "somehow" that energized the worry inside her. She tried to ignore it. She had to protect Buffy, after all. However, the looming question of whether her girlfriend was dead or alive wouldn't dissipate.

She received quick confirmation of Angel's presence in the living room, though, as the sounds of the fight carried through the heavy wooden door. Brittany and Sundus were taking him on now. Willow knew they were capable of taking him out. Not only were they both veteran slayers, they'd specifically trained together and had developed a working partnership. They weren't gonna make this easy for Angel.

Willow looked back at Buffy's body, still in her trance. They were at a disadvantage, of course: they couldn't kill Angel. At best, they could disable him. As long as Angel and Spike were still linked by the claim, killing Angel would kill Spike, and that was the last thing they wanted. Fighting an opponent was doubly difficult when the end goal was stalling.

Though Willow maintained a steady hope for Buffy to open her eyes and declare her mission a success, she knew she couldn't rely on that. She had to work under the assumption that Buffy was out for the long-haul.

With so many worries tangled up in her head, Willow's shoulders had tensed up thanks to knotted muscles. That wasn't productive. She needed some relief.

Willow closed her eyes and willed her shoulders to relax. With a calming breath, she reached out with her mind, searching for Kennedy. She circumvented the participants of the battle next door and moved outward. _There_. Kennedy's mind shone with a brilliance. She was alive, though unconscious.

Before she could even enjoy the comfort of knowing Kennedy was alive, her mind snapped over to the battle in the next room, summoned there by dire events. Brittany was gone, her presence extinguished from Willow's magic-enhanced perception. In the dimness that followed the palpable loss of one of their own, Sundus' mind expanded with a rage at the loss.

That was Angel's final Rubicon. Blood spilled now - _slayer_ blood. Stalling wasn't sufficient anymore, and Buffy couldn't blame Willow for pulling out all the stops.

Willow opened her eyes, coming back to herself. She wasn't waiting anymore.

A deliberate glance sent the wooden door flying open with a slam that echoed through the stone walls. Willow emerged from Buffy's bedroom.

Brittany's body lay sprawled on the couch, her neck snapped, her eyes open and lifeless. Sundus was nursing a broken arm, but she was still standing. While tears stained her cheeks, her expression was set in a calm resolve. Angel stood on the far side of the room, barely a scratch on him.

Willow tore her eyes away from Brittany's body to glare at Angel.

"You're just _trying_ to piss me off, aren't you?" Willow asked.

Her magic stirred inside her.

* * *

Caught in a tempest of perceptions and confusion, Buffy stayed frozen for several beats, attempting to regain her mental footing.

The last fifty years? Hadn't happened. Already, the memories were receding as if on the wave of a dream. Their former concrete reality seemed tenuous and ludicrous. _This_ wasn't real. It was all in Spike's head, and she was trying to save him from Angel.

Buffy started to move towards Spike, but stopped short when another scene appeared in the middle of the training room. It manifested like a piece of a film overlaid on reality. She closed her eyes against the onslaught of perceptual incongruities, but the scene remained before her, regardless of her attempt to shut it out. This was something Spike's mind _wanted_ to show her.

The image presented a view of the past. Victorian, if Buffy had to guess. Two young people sat on a couch. The woman Buffy recognized as being the strange person from Angel's office. She'd never seen the man before, though. No. A closer inspection revealed the man to be Spike. Well, William. Spike before he was Spike.

Buffy frowned. This was a scene from Spike's past.

Buffy looked to Spike, unsure of what was going on. He stared at the scene with a resigned horror but offered no explanation.

"They're vulgarians. They're not like you and I," William of the past said, smiling at the woman next to him. His head tilted to the side fondly in a manner Buffy was well-familiar with.

"You and I?" the woman echoed, seemingly aghast.

"Spike, what is this?" Buffy asked. She closed the distance between them, but Spike still didn't respond. His attention was fixed on his past.

"I'm going to ask you a very personal question, and I demand an honest answer. Do you understand?"

William nodded in earnest.

"Your poetry, it's...they're...not written about _me_, are they?"

"They're about how I feel."

"Yes, but are they about me?"

It took a few seconds of steeling himself up for William to reply: "Every syllable."

"Oh, God!"

Buffy's stomach dropped. This felt like an encroachment of the worst kind. She wanted to look away, out of respect for Spike, but something compelled her to watch. As the woman - Cecily - began to franticly look for a way to leave, Buffy wished she could do the same.

"Spike," Buffy tried to get his attention again. She grabbed his hand. "Spike, what is this?"

William broke into a stuttered declaration of love, which met with a similarly demoralizing response.

"I know I'm a bad poet, but I'm a good man. All I ask is that...that you try to see me - "

"I do see you. That's the problem." Cecily stood. "You're nothing to me, William. You're beneath me."

She walked away, outside the confines of the scene and into the recesses of Spike's mind. Only a devastated William remained.

"_Spike_."

"This is - " Spike finally responded. Before them, the scene started up again with the two sitting together. It was on a loop. "This is who I am."

Buffy got it. The blood bond, Angel's claim, Spike's despair. It wasn't all vampire stuff like Angel had said. It was very human. Spike was alone.

She'd spent the last fifty years with him. Okay, so none of it was real, but she _felt_ it. She had experienced - in some way - being with him like nobody else ever had. Like nobody else had ever been willing to try. Even after that lifetime-that-wasn't, though, Spike's fears kept emerging - his fear of rejection.

That was the fear that had sent him to Angel, hadn't it? Angel had been willing to claim him when Buffy hadn't. Buffy hadn't _wanted_ him.

No, that wasn't right. She _had_ wanted him. She'd just been unsure about the claim, about the eternity clause in the supernatural contract and how that might affect things between them. She knew it would be doing him a disservice to enter into that bond without an understanding or recognition of the full gravity of it.

Now she did, though, didn't she? She'd spent fifty years bonded with him. While it was a fantasy, yes, it was a fantasy they had created together. It wasn't all sunshine and roses, either. They'd fought. Buffy vividly remembered a huge falling out involving a year-long separation between them. It had been after Dawn's death, and emotions were running high. After a year and a lot of angry letter-writing, they'd reconciled.

Maybe it hadn't actually happened. Maybe it would never happen. But they'd experienced it, and they'd made it through and that _meant_ something to Buffy. It meant that they could do it. They could live together with a claim and make it work.

It meant there was another way out of this Angel mess they were in. Maybe she'd been chasing shadows all along, and it wasn't actually possible to get rid of Angel's claim from inside Spike's mind. But it had to be possible to assert her own claim from here.

One of his hands in hers, she touched his arm with her other hand. He finally looked at her, pain and fear palpable in his expression.

"Not anymore," she said.

She leaned forward and bit Spike's neck. Hard. She put all of her slayer strength behind it, not even stopping when she broke the skin. Instead, she began sucking his blood into her mouth, swallowing as she went. In Spike's mind, his blood flowed hot down her throat. Spike's body tensed, and his hands gripped her elbows, almost pushing her away. He didn't stop her, though. He groaned, and Buffy noticed him harden along her body.

Buffy knew the ritual. She lifted her head and whispered in his ear. "Mine."

"You don't know what you're doing..."

"It's our fiftieth anniversary, love. You're _mine_."

The pause seemed to take forever before he nodded. "So very much yours."

Buffy licked the blood from her lips and tilted her head to the side. She presented her neck for him. "Do it, Spike."

There was almost no hesitation this time. Spike's demon came to the fore, and he latched onto her neck, fangs penetrating her vein. He held her body close to his and took a couple mouthfuls, pulling away to harshly whisper, "Mine," in her ear.

"Yours." She touched her forehead to his and stroked a hand down his face. "Yours, Spike."

* * *

After a whole lot of nothing, everything seemed to be happening at once. Rona announced her team's success in opening the restricted area just as Vi came running up to Dawn.

"Dawn! Got through to England. Angel's at home base. He's bringing down the legal hammer on us to try to get to Buffy."

Dawn nodded. Already, Rona had the slayers entering the corridor to see if there were any traps. "We need to get to Spike now and get him out of here."

Vi had to gallop to catch up as Dawn turned and rushed into the restricted area. The hallway was long and empty, no doors on either side. Only at the very end stood one door with a keypad to the side. Fortunately, the door was open. Dawn skipped ahead of the slayers and jogged to get to the doorway.

Inside, the room was coated in a thin layer of blood. Spike lay, naked and unconscious, at the far end of the room. Judging by the lack of blood trails, he'd been out for a while.

Though she felt the bile rising in her throat, Dawn tamped down on the panic and kept her cool. She'd anticipated how bad this would be. Angel had given her the polaroids, after all.

She turned to Rona. "We have the jet here?"

Rona nodded.

"Okay. Get it ready. We're taking him home."

* * *

Buffy was in screaming pain when she woke up. It felt as if her insides were being eaten away by acid, slowly disintegrating. The intensity of the sensation caused her to cry out and curl up, holding onto her stomach. She needed...

_Spike._

He was an ocean away. So far away, she couldn't sense him. Couldn't feel him. But she needed to. She knew that his presence would stop the pain. Until he got here - until he was with her...

Buffy curled up tighter and closed her eyes. She felt like she was dying.

It was only the sound of shattering glass that managed to jolt Buffy out of her pain-wracked panic. She looked up. Her bedroom door was open. In the living room beyond, Angel and Willow were facing off. Willow had an aura of dangerous fury about her.

How long had she been in Spike's mind?

It didn't matter. Angel's claim on Spike was gone, replaced with her own. Angel could be killed now. Angel _should_ be killed now. Perhaps this should have been a revelatory and tortured moment of decision for Buffy, but the conclusion came as naturally as breathing. There was no hesitancy in her resolve.

Across the two rooms, Angel's eyes met hers. He grinned. Despite the pain, anger fired inside of her. He'd done so much to Spike, to her, to _hurt_ her. So vile.

"Good morning, Buffy," he said.

That was enough to distract Willow. When she turned to look at Buffy, Angel threw a right hook at her temple, knocking her out. Willow's body crumpled on the spot like an accordian deflating. Down for the count.

Buffy scrambled to open the drawer to her bedside table. She grabbed one of her stakes. Her grip wasn't firm, her hands were shaking. The separation from her claimed mate still tore at her body and soul, making each movement an excrutiating effort.

Her legs swung around to get off the bed. Angel was already approaching her, moving fast.

"Not sure what you were trying to do," Angel said. "But I guess it doesn't matter now. _I_ get the ultimate prize."

Before Buffy could react, Angel backhanded her onto the bed again. The stake fell from her hand. The violent impact shuddered through her body, and she felt as if she might vomit. Panic set in again, despite the urgency of the current situation. Every thought kept turning back to Spike. She needed Spike. Needed him here. Now.

Angel grabbed her by the hair, hauling her up and slamming her against the stone wall. He pinned her with a deadly grip on her throat. Buffy's body was too exhausted by the claim to resist.

"This is the end, Buffy," he said. "I've done so much for you, and you know what? I'm tired of your ingratitude. You're a selfish, spoiled brat of a girl, and I'm much better without you in my life."

He was going to kill her.

Killing her would kill Spike.

Dammit, she hadn't gone through all that trouble rescuing Spike just to have him get killed like _this_.

Even though she was at the end of her rope, she gathered together her remaining strength, dredged up through the physical and mental anguish. She lashed out with a clumsy kick. It wasn't precise, wasn't pretty. But it got the job done. Angel's grip on her was broken and he stumbled backwards a few steps.

Her mind could only focus on one thing at a time, but she would make it work. First order of business: find her stake.

It lay on the foot of the bed. With an effort, she grabbed it up, focusing on her next task, then: standing.

That task was partially interrupted, partially assisted by Angel, himself. He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her towards him so her body was flush against his. One hand cupped her cheek.

She winced at the sudden movement and held her stake at his chest. Her hands shook. He laughed.

"Not an option, remember? You don't want to lose your precious Spike."

His eyes held an affection that sickened her. She shook her head. "I won't." Her muscles protested, but she pushed them anyway. She jammed the wood into Angel's chest. The look of absolutely surprise from Angel would satisfy her for a long time.

She stepped back. "You lose, Angel."

Her body was exhausted. As Angel's body vanished into dust, Buffy collapsed onto the floor.

* * *

The hospital was busy again. Willow had refused any treatment. Except for the bruise developing on her temple, most of her wounds were metaphysical of the, "Whoops! Did too much magic!" type. Kennedy was in for a CAT scan to check on her concussion. Sundus' arm was getting a cast and sling. Brittany's body was being prepared for transport back to her family in the states. And then Buffy...

Giles entered the small lobby. "What happened?" he asked.

Willow bit her lip. After Angel's dusting, the lawyers had swiftly disbanded, unwilling to pursue such a frivolous legal attack without their leader's insistence. She hadn't been able to discuss what had happened with Buffy - given the whole "Buffy being unconscious" thing - but a quick magical perusal had revealed to Willow what Buffy had done.

How to explain it to Giles, though? "She's...uh..."

"She claimed him, didn't she?" Xander leaned against the doorframe, resigned.

Willow looked up in surprise at Xander's entrance. She nodded. "Looks like."

Giles removed his glasses. "So you're telling me that _while_ she was in Spike's head, eradicating Angel's claim, she established one of her own."

Willow sighed. "Uh huh. New claims are very intense. Physical separation can be painful for the first week or so. Until we can get Buffy and Spike together again, she'll probably stay passed out."

"Well, I have good news on that front." Xander said while walking into the room. "Dawn has rescued Spike. They're flying him back on the jet now. He's apparently in bad shape, but...vampire. He'll heal."

Willow shifted her weight from foot to foot. She looked to Giles. "What now?"

The older man looked very tired. "That's up to them."

"She's gonna live forever, right?" Xander asked, arms out with palms up in question. "Like, immortal, right?"

"I think," Willow said. "I mean, unless something - or someone - kills her. She's...forever."

"Anybody else think this was a _tragically_ bad move on Buffy's part?"

Giles said, "None of us know what went on while Buffy was in Spike's mind. Buffy's not stupid. I trust she knew what she was getting into, and that she had good reasons for it."

Xander frowned at the chastisement. He sat down on the lobby sofa, contenting himself with watching the traffic of nurses, doctors, and receptionists milling quietly about.

Willow hugged herself, worried for her friend, worried for Kennedy, worried for the organization. Buffy certainly wasn't the sole leader, but she was influential enough that her being off-kilter would have a trickle-down effect on everyone. Plus, how to explain to the new girls that their figurehead was mystically bonded with a vampire?

She looked to Giles. "You think everything will be alright?"

He smiled gently, the soothing hospital lighting softening his face. "I think things will be no worse than they usually are for us."

That was reassuring.

* * *

Buffy blinked, waiting as the blurred ceiling gradually became sharper. Turning her head took some effort. It felt like somebody had bunched her muscles together with a twisty-tie.

She was in the hospital. That was different. She'd been in her bedroom, right?

Her memory began to piece things back together. The journey through Spike's mind, the claim, the fight with Angel. She'd killed Angel.

_She'd killed Angel_.

That statement seemed like it should make a larger impact on her. Her stomach should sink. Her eyes should water. She should be devastated.

But she wasn't.

It felt _right_. What she'd done, she'd done because Angel had left her little choice. Because Spike had needed her. Because Angel had proven his true nature.

He was a monster, and she killed monsters.

She didn't regret it.

Buffy turned her head to the other side of the room. Spike lay on the bed next to her. Though she was hooked up to a steadily-beeping machine, Spike wasn't wired to anything. However, he had been bandaged up, and an IV of blood stood beside his bed.

The grueling pain that had accompanied their initial separation was gone. Buffy felt complete, content...though with a bit of reserve. The claim had been done under duress. Would that be a problem? Shouldn't that have been a thing they'd talked out more? Worked out together? What was going to happen now?

Spike's eyes opened as she watched him. He met her gaze. Maybe the uncertainty she had was contagious, because she couldn't read his expression as anything but.

She'd seen the most intimate parts of him, been completely immersed in _him_. This should make her feel closer to him than ever, but it instead made her feel as if a pane of bullet-proof glass had been erected between them. She could see him. She could smile at him. She couldn't touch him, though. Couldn't be with him.

Maybe this hadn't been the best idea she'd ever had.

They'd been staring at each other for too long, now. It was becoming awkward. Buffy attempted a smile, hoping they could overcome both of their doubts. They'd done it before in the imaginary life together that had played out in Spike's mind. Reality couldn't be that much harder, right?

"Hey," Buffy said.


	11. Chapter Eleven

**One month later...**

"Where's Willow again?" Buffy put the report back down on her desk. She glanced at the clock. 6:25. Almost time...

"Somalia. Out of contact," Neil reminded her, his eyebrows raised in silent commentary of her dazedness. He was still new to the job, though, so he didn't dare make any actual comment.

Buffy sighed. Willow was gone. So were Giles and Xander. "Well, send Sofia. She's up on the magics and can definitely hold her own. Make sure she has some of the girls with her, though. We don't want this guy getting out of hand. Well, anymore than he already has."

Neil nodded. "I'll let you know on our progress there."

"Yep." Buffy was already reaching into her desk drawer for her purse. She barely looked up as Neil walked out.

Her purse retrieved, Buffy left, not forgetting to lock her office door behind her. She took the familiar trip down the stone corridor to the training room where Spike was giving the new recruits a good sparring. He'd already stopped for the day by the time she arrived, otherwise she would have taken the opportunity to pause and admire.

He nodded at her entrance and grabbed his jacket from a chair. He tossed off a casual wave as several of the girls said goodbye.

"Long day?" Buffy asked, trying for conversation.

He shrugged in a noncommittal answer.

That had been their pattern since he'd arrived in England. Oh, he'd spent about a week healing from his injuries. During that time, Buffy had tried to give him some space so he wasn't feeling smothered or - what was that word he had used before? - _coddled_.

After he'd recovered, though, Buffy had expected to get to the happy togetherness part of their new claim, but that apparently wasn't to be. Spike had been hesitant to even talk to her. He had accepted her offer of staying with her - somehow the thought of him being too far away still unnerved her - but he'd ended up sleeping on the couch instead of in her bed.

The whole thing left Buffy feeling empty.

"We're sending Sofia to that warlock dude. It's a little outside our jurisdiction. Human, after all. But given that incident last week, we think it's best to nip it in the bud. He's not evil. Just distraught. Sofia's nice so she can hopefully talk him down from whatever he's going through."

Last week had seen a panic in town as a previously unheard of warlock named Lance had appeared and began to wreak havoc in the form of crumbling buildings and random combustion of vehicles. He'd managed to disappear before he could be contained, but after some research her watchers had been successful in finding him. Too bad Willow wasn't around now. They needed somebody reasonably proficient in magic to deal with him, and they were coming up a bit sparse.

Spike nodded in acknowledgment, but didn't make any comment of his own.

Buffy sighed. "How are the girls coming along?"

"Pretty sloppy. Don't know who taught them initially, but they did a piss-poor job of it."

His words were like an arrow to the gut. Buffy felt the sting. "That person would be me, actually."

No response.

She unlocked her door in silence, leaving it for Spike to close it as they entered.

"I'm going out with Dawn tonight," Buffy said quickly. Okay, so that hadn't been a planned thing, but she didn't think she could tolerate a night in with Spike again.

He was already moving to the fridge to heat up some blood. His words may be arrows, but his silence remained a steam engine crushing her.

* * *

"I don't know what's going on."

The ice in her drink bobbed at the surface. She stabbed at it with her straw, but it only slipped around to get to the top again. Futile, just like everything else she tried to do.

Dawn took a sip of her own drink. "I can talk to him."

"No," Buffy said. "No. We're all claimed and stuff. We're supposed to work this out together, right?"

Dawn gave her a skeptical look. Buffy moaned and put her head down, narrowly avoiding the water ring left by her drink.

Nights out at Felipe's Diner with Dawn weren't unusual nowadays. Staying in meant being stuck in her apartment with an unresponsive Spike. Buffy couldn't deal with that. After the big climax of rescuing him and the hope and optimism that came with it, each day getting the cold shoulder chipped away more and more at her heart. Avoiding the situation entirely was the only way she could cope.

Buffy lifted her head slightly. "I can't take this, Dawn. I don't know what to do."

Their usual waitress - Emily - brought their dinner, studiously avoiding any small talk as she judged the private conversation. Still, Buffy had to sit up all the way and the interruption allowed her to regain her composure.

Dawn waited until Buffy had started eating. "I can do some research, then."

"Research?"

"On the claims. See if maybe there's some adverse reactions that could be happening. Oh! Or maybe since you claimed Spike on _top_of Angel's claim - "

Buffy shook her head. "When I claimed Spike, it got rid of Angel's claim. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to kill Angel."

"Still, maybe it caused some complications. It's not exactly the standard claiming situation, is it?"

"No, it's not," Buffy admitted. Her pasta had become unappetizing. Her stomach had soured, and she pushed the plate away. This, too, wasn't unusual. "I guess some more research couldn't hurt."

Dawn nodded. "Whatever it is, we can take care of it."

"Yeah."

Buffy didn't want to tell Dawn about her actual fear: That there wasn't any complication with the claim at all. No. It had worked perfectly. Spike just didn't want to be with her for eternity. He'd agreed in the panic of the moment, swept up with the big romance and the setting. Now, though...

Now he didn't want her.

* * *

The evening found Buffy returning home late. Her apartment was dark, and Spike was already asleep on the sofa when she entered.

She tried to be as quiet as possible, edging around furniture carefully.

In her mind, Spike woke up and greeted her with a sleepy smile. His hair was tousled - sexy. She told him about her day, and he groused about his. Then he'd suggest a soothing backrub with a raised eyebrow to hint at more. They'd retreat to the bedroom where Spike would show off his magical hands in a myriad of ways, and they'd fall asleep together.

Okay, so Buffy didn't fantasize _that_much anymore. Years of dealing with the harsh reality of life as the slayer had trained her out of it. Ever since this claim, though, she'd found that her brain went off on its own tangents when life wasn't measuring up. The flashes of would-be worlds were intense, so much that the blink back to reality left a sore throb in her gut.

She gave up on making it to the bedroom. Instead, she sighed and sat down in the armchair next to the sofa. The battered springs made a small noise, and Buffy tensed in anticipation of Spike waking up.

He didn't. He shifted position, stretching one arm over his head and tilting his face towards the back of the sofa.

She should try to talk to him about all of this. Better than keeping it bottled up. After all, it was obvious that something was _wrong_. Communication was supposed to be important for a couple, and neither Buffy or Spike had been holding up their end as of late.

Tomorrow was a day off for both of them. Well, ostensibly. "Days off" didn't happen frequently, but Buffy had insisted on it for once back when she'd thought she and Spike would be busy making with the happy coupleness. Now, the thought of a whole day dealing with Spike filled her with a guilty dread.

Still, the slayers could get along without them for a day, and Buffy could take the opportunity to get things sorted out between them.

Buffy smiled as she watched him sleep, lost in her imaginings of what might be tomorrow. Her heart burned.


	12. Chapter Twelve

Spike's lips brushed against the back of her neck. His hands stroked down the expanse of her back, trailing to the sides of her hips, around to the front, ending with his palms cupping her center. His breath was cool as his tongue began to trace the ridges of her ears. Buffy's own breath hitched, and she held his hands close to her body, urging him on.

Her eyes were open, but she couldn't see. Black was all around her. The only sensations were touch, smell, sound. She didn't care, though, because Spike surrounded her, grounded her. Kept her safe and alive.

"I've missed you," she breathed.

"Always right here," he murmured, applying tiny bites with blunt teeth to her neck. She let her head fall back against his shoulder.

"No, you aren't." She turned, allowing a modicum of distance to insert itself between their bodies. As she gazed into the abyss where Spike should be, her vision began to clear. An image of him appeared, blurred yet visible. Like viewing a watercolor painting from the corner of your eye.

He looked sad.

"You're so far from me," Buffy said softly.

"Don't want to be, love."

"Then don't." She put her hand to his chest, feeling the firmness of his body even if his image was still fragile.

His hand stroked through her hair. "I just don't know how to go on from here what with all..."

She shook her head. "I don't understand."

He sighed and pushed himself away. Touch was gone. As he did, the image of him became clearer and more substantial. "You've seen so much of me. It's all a little one-sided, isn't it?"

A siren pierced the air. Both of them looked up.

"I hate that alarm," Buffy said with a grimace.

She woke up with a turn, slapping her hand onto the digital alarm clock. When she situated herself back into bed - taking advantage of the snooze button - her body cooled as she processed the fact that she was alone. Just another dream.

* * *

Breakfast for Buffy consisted of sticking two pieces of bread into the toaster and pouring herself a glass of orange juice. Anything more elaborate was far too demanding.

Spike emerged from the bathroom as her toast popped. He had just taken a shower. He wore only his jeans, and his hair was tossled in that sexy way that Buffy tried not to notice but inevitably did. He went straight to the fridge to get his blood.

A day off together in theory meant quality time together. A day to heal and to work things out. Buffy tried to remain optimistic.

"So, what do you wanna do today?" Buffy asked brightly, trying to convey an ease that didn't exist between them.

Spike grunted. "Not much _to_do. Vampire, remember? Not likely to do picnics in the sun if that's what you're looking for."

Buffy frowned. "It wasn't." Her hands began to shake as she poured herself some juice. This shouldn't be that difficult.

The edge of the juice carton knocked the glass over, sending the liquid spilling over the counter. Buffy swore loudly. She slammed the carton down and grabbed for a towel.

When she glanced behind her, Spike hadn't even looked up. He sat on the couch, poring over a book Giles had loaned him.

"Spike, is there something...," Buffy started to speak without knowing where she was planning on ending up. Spike had the decency to look up at her. She sighed and began again. "Is there something bothering you? I mean, if there's any way I can help you - anything you need, just...let me know."

He considered her for a few moments. Buffy almost thought they'd actually have a conversation. Then he turned back to his book. "Don't fret, love. Everything's fine."

* * *

A castle was far from the ideal headquarters. It was drafty, cold, and poorly organized. What it had in abundance, however, was space. What had at one time been a dining hall was transformed into the control room, as it were. That's where the heart of the new council beat endlessly as shifts rotated around the clock. Instead of long banquet tables, however, desks scattered around the room with computers and monitors pulling up relevant new briefs to draw their attention to.

The control room was in a lull at the moment. Buffy had purposely chosen her day off during a slow time in council business. No scheduled prophecies coming to be. No anticipated apocalypses to be stopped. No influx of new slayers to train. Instead, they were just maintaining "business as usual". Only a few watchers milled around, most likely busy with paperwork.

After the no-go with Spike, Buffy _had_ to get away. Throw herself into her work. That was the key to feeling better. There was only so much she could do until he got over whatever it was that he needed to get over. And if he wouldn't even _talk_to her...

"Buffy!" Neil looked up in surprise at her entrance. He put down his pen and stood, looking ready to relinquish his position at the lead desk. "Is there a problem?"

"No, no." Buffy waved a hand. "Just...checking on things. Anything slay-y going down that needs my help?"

He frowned. Buffy immediately began to worry that she was coming across like a micromanaging boss.

"Well, I wasn't going to bother you with this seeing as it's your day off..."

"Oooh! Bother me. Please." Buffy slid into the chair across from him, indicating that he should sit back down. She placed her elbows on his desk and leaned forward. "What's up?"

Neil glanced at his computer monitor before looking back at her. "It's just that we've lost contact with Sofia's team sometime in the last four hours. Kennedy is preparing a follow-up team to find out what's going on."

Fun and games with a crazed warlock? Now that was something Buffy could handle. She straightened up. "I'll go."

"Are you sure? I mean, you really do deserve some downtime."

"No such thing when you're the slayer. Where's the prep happening?"

With a sigh, Neil let her know that the team was mobilizing in Training Room A. Buffy swiftly left the control room to join the follow-up team's preparations in the training room.

_Anything_ to help distract her.

* * *

Buffy double-checked the address that had been provided for her against the numbers on the side of the cottage. Said cottage was far off the beaten path, making any sort of stealthy approach impossible.

Fortunately, Buffy wasn't relying on stealth. She was more a fan of the direct method of confrontation, and she hadn't hesitated to be the one to volunteer to approach his house.

Kennedy and the rest of the team remained at the forest's edge, prepared to come in as reinforcements if need be. Buffy decided she might be less threatening by herself. From the reports about the incident in town, it didn't seem as if they were dealing with a malicious person. If Lance was at the end of his rope, being faced with an armed force of powerful young women was sure to be intimidating. That's likely what happened with Sofia's team.

The cottage was immaculately kept with planted flowers lining the front of the house. Smooth stepping stones led to the front door. It looked like a fairy-tale house that Buffy had only seen in illustrations to children's books. If she'd wanted an escape from her personal issues, this scenery was doing its job.

Buffy had thought that she should give Spike the heads up as to where she was. Then she remembered that he probably wouldn't care. Instead, she'd had Neil pass the message along to Dawn that she was going on assignment. Hopefully, Buffy would be home by the evening, and Spike wouldn't even miss her.

She knocked on the door and waited.

After a moment, the door cracked open. A bloodshot eye peered from the opening, and a husky voice asked, "Who is it?"

"You're Lance, right?" Buffy replied. She pushed the door open despite his resistance and entered the house. "We need to talk."

The door opened up to a tiny living room decorated in grandma-style. When Buffy turned to face Lance, she was surprised to see that he was a relatively young guy. Okay, a relatively young guy who looked like he'd been living under a bridge for a couple years, but definitely not the kind of guy to inhabit a place this quaint. His hair was long and tangled together into mats. His face was covered in razor nicks and patches of stubble as if he'd tried to shave with a broken arm. His clothes, at least, were nice and new and, well, designer. So new, a tag dangled from the sleeve of his shirt.

He looked spooked at her entrance, unsure whether to protest or not. She took the opportunity of his silence to cross her arms and take control of the situation.

"Alright, a team of girls was sent to help you yesterday. We know about the magic and we want to help. But we get kinda cranky when our people don't return to us, you know?"

"Your girls..."

"What happened to them?"

He shut the door. "You're one of them."

"Uh huh. Now where are they?"

He grabbed his head, tearing at his hair. His face scrunched up in an infantile expression of frustration. "I told them not to send anyone else!"

Buffy frowned. "Told who?"

He looked up at her, though his head remained in his hands. "What's your name?"

"You're getting too worked up. Stay there. I'm checking the house." Buffy moved to the hallway when a force sent her skidding back to the wall. She gasped as she felt a surge inside her mind, probing.

Lance's head snapped up and his eyes widened with discovery. "Buffy Summers. She asked for you."

Before Buffy could react, she felt the force of magic descend on her, wrapping around her like a string and tightening. She passed out.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

Some things just couldn't be rushed into. He'd learned that in recent years. Oh, he would've in his past. Would've strolled in and grabbed the largest club with the thickest metal handle and started breaking knees. Now 'caution' was his codeword. He didn't want to mess things up.

As Spike inspected the row of clubs laying flat on the counter, Buffy yelled at him. She was already on the first hole. The tall outdoor lights created a halo around her in the evening darkness.

"I'm going without you!" she called.

He waved his hand at her to go ahead. She was so far away already. No use holding her up.

The far left side of the counter had three bright red plastic toddler clubs. They looked appealing. Bulky yet lightweight. Not dangerous in the least.

"Spike?"

Annoyed, he glanced over to where Buffy was. She stood in the middle of the course, bookended by an elephant and a windmill. Her club dangled uselessly from her right hand. She looked lost.

"Why are you all the way over there?" she asked.

"Picking my club, aren't I?" he replied. He'd told her that already, hadn't he?

She wrapped her arms around herself, her club sticking up behind her back. The lights around her began to dim. "Please come here."

Wasn't fair, her insisting that he hurry up like that. He had to go at his own pace. She should know that. Used to be her thing, after all. But now she was gonna pout and give him that sad look that made him feel like a right ass.

"Spike, please."

He wanted to go for the longest club. It was the one for adults who accompanied their children to the course. It was a no-nonsense black and came up to mid-thigh. He'd barely have to bend over to use it. And yet, the bright red children's club kept demanding his attention. Maybe that was the better choice.

"Spike, something's wrong. Haven't you realized?"

"I'm busy." He didn't look up.

"I'm hurt."

He growled. "I _said_ I'm busy!"

* * *

Dawn power walked down the hallway. She should've expected that Buffy wouldn't actually _take_her day off what with the way things were going with Spike - and how much did she want to just thwack Spike and ask what his problem was? Buffy had vetoed that idea, though, so Dawn had kept quiet. She had a stack of studying to take care of, anyway. Her contribution to the "Save Spike From Angel" mission had put her very far behind in her classes, and she had to cram to catch up.

In fact, she had been taking notes on the latest chapter for her Mythology class when the call from Neil had come: Buffy hadn't returned from her recent - impromptu - mission. Kennedy's team reported that Buffy had been captured. They were observing from a distance now, but Buffy's status was unknown.

With Giles, Xander, and Willow away, Dawn was the senior member of the group, so the new watcher had come running to her.

And now she was running to Spike. Because any rescue mission of Buffy _had_to include him.

Dawn pounded on the door to Buffy and Spike's room. Well, more Buffy's room than Spike's, apparently, though they supposedly shared it. Dawn had heard all about _that_during the nightly trips to Felipe's. It took a few minutes for Spike to answer, and he was rubbing his eyes as he did so. She'd obviously woken him up.

He looked surprised to see her. "Dawn."

Spike's current nondustiness told Dawn that Buffy, at least, was still alive. The claim ensured that Spike's death would follow hers. If Spike was alive, Buffy was alive. "Spike," she said in way of greeting as she breezed past him to enter the living room.

"Come on in," Spike said sarcastically.

Dawn whirled around to face him. "Spike, we need your help."

"My day off, remember? Think you all can handle training without me for a bit." Spike began to walk towards the kitchen area, presumably to get some blood.

"Spike, do you know where Buffy is right now?"

He paused at the refrigerator. "Figured she was with you. That's where she usually is."

"Right," Dawn said. "Good to see you two doing _so well_at communicating!"

He turned with a scowl. "You got a reason for coming here, pet, or you just gonna rail on me for my relationship foibles?"

"Buffy's missing."

He didn't respond, but his expression shifted out of anger.

"Buffy's missing," Dawn repeated, taking advantage of his stunned silence. "She went on a follow-up mission, and it looks like she's been captured by some major wizard guy. We're still trying to figure out what's going on, but - "

"She went on a mission," he said softly. "And now she's been captured."

"That's what I said."

"Why haven't you all done anything? Send in the bloody troops!" He approached her with arms motioning to either side in a gesture of grand panic.

"We're running low on 'bloody troops'. Slayers aren't incredibly effective against magic-users, and our big gun - Willow - is in another continent right now."

"So just launch an all-out assault. Even a warlock'll get tired if you just throw everything at him!"

"Spike, I came here because we're gonna need your help to get to Buffy," Dawn said.

"What the fuck was Buffy doing on a mission anyway? It's her day off, too!"

"I don't know, but she probably went in to work to avoid you, you know. She's been crying to me about you every stupid night! If I know Buffy, she tried to talk to you, got rebuked, then went on some dangerous mission to take her mind off it. Maybe if you'd stop being such a baby about this whole thing - "

"Oh, is that the way of it?" Spike raised his eyebrows. "Listen, I didn't start this distance thing. Buffy's been treating me like I was a leper ever since I got out of the hospital. Me sleeping on the couch? _Her_ idea. And every night, she goes out with you so she doesn't have to be around me. So don't bloody well lay this on me. I've been here. I've been right _here_!" He ran out of steam then and shrunk back, breaking eye contact with Dawn. He ran a hand through his hair. "She was in my _mind_, Dawn. She's seen everything and now she's... I haven't known how to talk to her."

Dawn wanted to smack herself. This wasn't the time to bring this all up. She stepped forward and put a hand on Spike's arm, trying to be comforting.

"She's been feeling the same way," Dawn said.

Spike looked up at her. His expression seemed close to breaking.

"Spike, you two can work this all out. _Later_. Right now, Buffy's captured and we need _your_help to get her back."

Spike nodded. "Right." He took a deep breath. "What's the plan?"

* * *

It was the smell that woke Buffy up. The air was thick with the stench of vomit and death. Opening her eyes revealed herself to be in a garden shed, chained to the wall with both hands cuffed above her head.

A figure moved in front of her, hard to make out in the darkness.

"Lance?" Buffy called, experimenting with a quick tug to her restraints. They didn't budge. "Lance, you have to let me go."

"No," a woman's voice answered. "I don't think so."

A lantern was lit, illuminating the shed. Buffy sucked in a breath at Drusilla's presence in front of her.

"Drusilla," she said.

"You've taken my William from me," Drusilla said. She wagged a finger at Buffy. "Naughty girl! Ought to stand still and let the heat roll away."

A corpse lay in the far corner of the shed - an older woman. Though the body was several days old, Buffy could clearly see the bite marks on her neck.

"You did this to Lance. Set him off to, what, bait me?"

Drusilla's eyes were wide and her smile ominous. She tilted her head at Buffy. "Worked, didn't it?" She stepped forward, moving within inches of Buffy. "Felt it. The ribbon between you and Spike. Called to me, and I came."

"The claim," Buffy said. "You could sense the claim."

The vampire tutted. "Doing what I hadn't, foolish girl. My Spike always asked. Dressing up young toddlers to bribe me into it."

"Why'd you turn him down?"

Drusilla's gaze shifted, looking at Buffy's chest. "His heart is clouded. Not sure what he wants."

Buffy hoped to avoid a session with Drusilla the Couples Counselor. "And what do _you_want?"

"I want my William back."

"If your plan is to get 'your William' back, why am _I_chained up right now?" Buffy asked.

Drusilla frowned. "Can't have my Willliam while he's stuck to you. Glue's all murky."

Right. The claim.

"But," Drusilla smiled. "I've found ways around that, dear sun. Lot of your blood, bit of mine, a night of dirt, and you shall rise." She laughed. "Can't wait to catch the rabbit!"

While the rabbit part of the statement went right past Buffy, she recognized the significance of what was being said: Drusilla was planning to turn Buffy.

Drusilla stepped forward, tracing a sharp nail down Buffy's cheek. "Want to play first. Such a firm young tart." Drusilla's hand flowed down Buffy's neck to her breasts and further down. Buffy gasped and clamped her legs together, drawing herself against the wall as much as possible.

"Dru, what did you do with the girls?" she asked quickly, hoping to distract Drusilla away from that.

Drusilla's hand stopped just below Buffy's navel. She looked up at Buffy with a devious grin. "Delicious dumplings. Couldn't waste them."

"They're all dead?" Buffy asked. She knew it. She knew it as soon as she'd seen Drusilla, but she hadn't wanted to believe it.

"Oh!" Drusilla threw her hands up as if in surprise. Then she turned to rummage in one of the darkened corners of the shed. "Almost forgot."

Buffy swallowed nervously when Drusilla emerged from the shadows with a cattle prod. It immediately called up memories of, well, the last time she'd seen Drusilla with a cattle prod.

Drusilla perked her shoulders up and grinned tightly. "Happy memories."

She thrust the cattle prod at Buffy's side. Buffy jerked at the jolt of electricity - much more than she'd remembered. She doubled over as best as the chains allowed her to.

Drusilla bounced. "_Harder_ memories."

* * *

_Buffy's missing. Buffy's missing. Buffy's missing._

It's as if Spike's mind was stuck on repeat. Maybe if the thought whirled around his head enough, he'd actually start _doing_something about it instead of helplessly panicking.

Shouldn't he have known? Through the claim or just...through knowing?

Things hadn't been going well at all between them. He knew that. He hadn't been sure of how to fix it or if he even wanted to. After everything with Angel, his grip on the world felt so tenuous. Putting down roots with Buffy seemed more fantasy than reality. She was distant from him; he was distant from her. The claim should make them closer than ever before, but there might as well be oceans between them.

However, while he hadn't been sure of what he wanted, he knew he didn't want _this_.

Dawn sat down at one of the tables in the operations room. Neil swiftly laid a cup of coffee in front of her.

"Sit," she said.

"Prefer to stand." His hands were on his hips, and his instinct was to _move_. "Where's the cavalry? Sun's down, so I can head out with them - "

"That's not what we need you for."

"Maybe it's not about what _you_need," he snapped.

Dawn sighed but held his gaze. Of course, Dawn never backed down.

"We need to get in contact with Buffy to figure out what's going on," Dawn said. "We're low on info, and Kennedy's team can't even begin an approach without being instantly spotted."

"Not sure of my part in this..."

"We can take advantage of the claim to establish a line of communication to Buffy."

Spike paused. That sounded nutters.

Dawn kept talking, "The claim allows you to share dreams anyway. This would be a slight variation on that. Once we get the lowdown, we can more effectively plan our rescue."

"Wait, back up to the sharing dreams part."

"You haven't noticed?"

He shook his head.

She rolled her eyes. "If you two are sleeping at the same time, the claim kinda...joins your minds up so you're sharing the same dreamspace." She frowned. "You've been sharing dreams for a month and _haven't noticed_?"

"Well, it's a dream, isn't it? Not like I'm ever lacking for Buffy in my normal dreams so it doesn't exactly seem too odd to have her always there."

It was more than that, though, and he knew it. He strained his mind to think of any of his recent dreams, but the current crisis had sent them scattering from his memory.

Dawn looked as if she wanted to say more, but she pursed her lips and continued. "Obviously, we can't tell if Buffy's asleep now or not, but we can activate your end of the dreamspace and sort of insert it into her waking perception."

"Come again?"

"You'll be asleep. Buffy won't. Buffy will see you. You'll talk. You wake up and let us know what's going on."

"Is this like when she prowled around my head?"

"Completely different. Think of this like astral projection or something. Just, really indirect and only Buffy will be able to see you."

"And who's gonna be doing this bout of magic?"

Dawn stood. "That would be me. With Willow and Sofia both unavailable, I'm the next go-to." She waved a hand. "It's super-easy. No need to be worried."

And yet, Spike was.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

"Tell me, lovey." Drusilla paced in front of Buffy. "Do you enjoy it?"

Buffy turned her face to the side, resting against her arm. She'd hoped she would have passed out a long time ago, but Drusilla was apparently skilled in this particular art. Learned from Angelus, no doubt.

"Taking my own?" Drusilla continued. She tapped the cattle prod against the palm of her hand. "Angelus fell for your tricks and lies, too. Caught in the wave to drown."

A jab at Buffy's side sent electric shocks pulsing through her body. She would cry out, but she was past screaming. Instead, she grit her teeth together and closed her eyes, waiting for the pain to subside.

It never went away, entirely. The shocks began to ripple until they joined the existing pool of a dull ache that plagued her body. Not even her slayer healing powers could cut through the agony.

Too much agony to count lately. So this was physical pain. She could deal with that. She'd been dealing with the much more substantial emotional pain in the past months, hasn't she? Finding Spike, losing Spike, finding Spike again, losing him again, rescuing him, losing him. Spike was like a bad penny, just not bad and she kept losing him, not finding him. So not like a bad penny at all. Like something good she really wanted but just couldn't have no matter what she did although if Drusilla turned her into a vampire, she'd still be able to be with Spike and that wouldn't be so bad, would it?

Buffy opened her eyes at the soft touch of Drusilla's hand against her cheek. Drusilla gazed at her with wide, dark eyes. "Poor dearie. Soon you'll be where you ought."

Drusilla's eyes were like wells. Deep wells that didn't end. They kept on going right through the center of the Earth like in that Alice in Wonderland movie. No, that was a rabbit hole. Drusilla's eyes weren't like rabbit holes at all. Buffy's mind was going round the bend thanks to the torture.

She let her heavy eyelids droop, closing her eyes in an attempt to reset her mind. When she opened them again, Drusilla was gone. In her place was...

Spike. Standing before her as if he'd been there all along. Buffy blinked, but he didn't vanish.

He stood in a familiar slouch, watching her with wary eyes. Had Buffy fallen asleep? Was this the rescue?

"Spike," Buffy said. She jerked at her chains, quickly coming back to her senses. "Help me."

"You do need it, don't you?" Spike's eyes wandered up and down her body.

"Spike, it's Drusilla. She's here, and she's working with this warlock guy. The other girls are dead - "

Spike raised his eyebrows. "Drusilla?"

"Yes."

He stepped closer to her. His hand hovered over her bloodied shoulder. "She to thank for this?"

"Yeah, Spike, she's _right outside_. We don't have time to commune."

He lunged forward, hands on either side of her head, callous stare directed at her. She shrunk back despite herself.

"Scared of me, Slayer?"

"What are you - ?"

She never finished her question. In the next moment, his lips crashed down on hers. She put up little resistance, succumbing immediately to his passion. His touch was harsh as he paid no attention to her wounds. She didn't care. She'd missed this. All of this. She'd missed Spike. Pain or no pain, she was willing to lose herself in his frantic kiss, his hands tangling through her hair, pulling her arms against the chains that still bound her.

Her entire body slammed back against the wall as electricity jolted through her. She screamed in surprise. Over the buzz of the shock she heard Drusilla's joyful cackle.

"Ooooo...gullible little pigeon! Eats up all the pies."

When the buzz settled, Buffy slowly opened her eyes. No Spike. Only Drusilla.

Drusilla's mind tricks. Buffy must be pretty far gone if Drusilla were able to get to her like that. Even as she accepted reality, her heart ached for the fantasy of Spike she'd had for those few brief moments.

Drusilla leaned forward, tapping Buffy's lower lip with her pointer finger. "You taste like fire."

Buffy shook her head away and pulled against her restraints. Drusilla positioned the tip of the prod at Buffy's wrist. The chains bent her arms outwards so the tender skin of her inner arm was exposed. Drusilla made contact, dragging the prod slowly down Buffy's flesh.

Flashes of light burst before Buffy's eyes, through her body, in her head. Her arm felt like it was being destroyed in a sequence of explosions, each one more brutal than the previous. Her arm was coming apart. She closed her eyes, though she knew doing so wouldn't block out the pain. She could pretend, though, in that darkness, that this was all a dream.

Whatever Drusilla's next move might have been, she was interrupted by a banging on the shed door.

"Witch! Come out, witch!"

That was Lance. Drusilla cocked her head. She patted Buffy's cheek.

"Perdon. Have a dream, love."

Drusilla left Buffy alone for the first time.

Buffy knew she couldn't be useless. It may be futile, but she was damn well gonna try to fight this. She wasn't one to be duped by Drusilla's games, and she wasn't going to helplessly submit to a torture session from the crazy vampire.

Buffy attempted to bend the chains. Her strength was minimal at the moment. Her prolonged adventures with the cattle prod had weakened her muscles. Her efforts at bending the chains seemed to have no effect so she began to work against the wall of the shed, itself. She had succeeded in making a small curve in the metal when he appeared.

She grunted in frustration and let her head fall back to rest against the wall. Spike was in front of her again.

More mind tricks. She was _not_falling for this again.

She closed her eyes. "Go away."

"Buffy," Spike said. "We may not have much time."

Buffy sighed. "Oh, _now_you want to talk." When she opened her eyes, Spike was still there. "Guess Drusilla has a way of knowing what you really want, huh?"

"Drusilla?"

Buffy wasn't sure how to deal with the new figment. Would it go away if she ignored it? She hated that it was standing there in Spike's image looking as concerned as she had wanted him to look for the past month. It wasn't fair.

"Love, you need to let me know what's going on so we can plan a rescue. Dawn's using some magic to do something with the claim. Bunch of nonsense to me, but it works. How...how badly are you hurt?"

His voice softened. His eyes were wide. They weren't a deep well or a rabbit hole. His eyes were the limitless sky with promises of flight. Buffy bit her lip to keep the tears from coming. This is just what she'd wanted.

"I'm not falling for it this time, Drusilla," Buffy said.

Spike was looking around the shed. "Drusilla's here? What about this Lance bloke?"

Buffy laughed. This was such a surreal conversation. Of course, Drusilla was nuts so it made sense that the figments she created would be nuts.

The not-Spike moved closer and reached a hand as if to touch her. He paused a few inches away from her skin, though.

"Buffy, I know you think that Drusilla's playing some trick on you, but she's not. Only you can see me cause of the claim. Please, love. Tell me what you know."

She met his gaze. "I've managed to keep myself from becoming a vampire this long, I can do it a bit longer. I'll rescue myself, thanks."

Not-Spike drew back as if slapped. Buffy closed her eyes again, resolved to let her aching muscles rest for a while.

She startled when cool fingers touched her cheek.

"I promise, love. I'm coming to get you."

Then the hallucination was gone.

* * *

It was like somebody had flipped the switch inside his head. All of his ambivalence and apathy vanished and all he knew was that he had to get to Buffy.

He'd been coasting for a while, hadn't he? He'd given up after Angel had taken away his blood rites. He'd had a good run, and he was ready to face the end. Despite Buffy's claiming of him, he hadn't really emerged from that mindset. This past month had him still surrendered to failure, even in the face of hope. This changed now. He'd make it change.

Spike's heavy bootsteps echoed down the hallway. "She's going to try to turn Buffy," he said. Dawn had to gallop to keep up with his quick pace.

"Wait, why? And wouldn't turning Buffy kill her? Which would mean killing you? Drusilla _does_know you two are claimed, right?"

Spike flung the door to the armory open and stepped inside. Axes, staffs, swords, and more lined the walls. Spike considered them, taking the time to decide how best to do the deed.

"Ordinarily, yeah, killing Buffy would dust me. Claim's got a nice little loophole in it, though. If the slayer gets turned, then we both get to remain in one piece."

"So why's Drusilla doing this again?"

He sighed. He didn't have time to explain all this. He turned to Dawn. "Drusilla and I lost our familial link when Angel yanked away my blood bond. Seems Dru's not happy with that. Turning Buffy would link the two of them and, by extension, me since I'm linked to Buffy. It's her way of getting me back as family."

Dawn frowned. "You vamps ever consider The Jerry Springer Show?"

Spike snorted. Some things didn't deserve an answer.

Decision made, Spike reached for an old classic: the battle axe. Hadn't let him down thus far.

Dawn grabbed Spike's arm as he snatched up his weapon. "Spike, what's your plan?"

"Go in, get Buffy, kill Dru. I'm flexible on the order."

"What about Lance? Seems Dru's teamed up with some major warlock, and last I checked, you don't have the magic powers to go up against him."

Spike had already turned to head for the castle exit. "Figure that out when I get there."

"Spike!" Dawn ran around in front of him, impeding his progress. He glared at her. "I want Buffy back as much as you do, but you're just gonna get yourself killed. And you _know_what'll happen to Buffy then."

He paused for the first time. Knowing she was right, not wanting to admit it. Every bone in his undead body was screaming at him to save his mate.

Dawn spoke in a calmer voice when she saw that she had his attention. "We'll get her," she said. "I promise. Let me work out a plan first, okay?"

"One hour, niblet. You get a plan by then or I'm going on my own."

* * *

Drusilla had been gone a long time. Of course, Buffy didn't have any way to keep track of how long it was. It's not like Drusilla had been helpful and left a watch or anything. But she could tell by the sheer boredom that came with being held captive. Boredom and frustration, actually.

Though she'd managed to make a decent sized dent in the wall of the shed, nothing had come of it. She had decided to rest her exhausted muscles for the moment. The shock of the cattle prod had weakened her substantially.

Her eyes remained fixed on the body of the old woman on the floor across from her. Scenario: Old lady is Lance's mother. Drusilla arrives in town, senses out Lance's amazing magic power, decides to use him to get Buffy's attention. In doing so, she kills the mother and puts Lance under a thrall. Lance does what Lance does. Drusilla sits back and waits for Buffy to come to her, killing any extra slayers sent to her in the meantime.

How many people had died because of her relationship with Spike now?

Before her thoughts could continue, the door of the shed opened and Drusilla entered with a cryptic smile.

"He comes," she said.

"Who comes?" Buffy asked.

Drusilla shook her head while walking towards her. She smiled. "Must be ready, doll."

She trailed her finger down Buffy's neckline. Buffy jerked away. Vampires going for the neck only ever meant one thing.

"Drusilla, wait!" Buffy said in hopes of stalling.

It suceeded. Drusilla cocked her head and paused. "What?"

Buffy hadn't thought much beyond that immediate moment, though. She scrambled. "Why do you even want Spike now that he has a soul? I'd think you wouldn't like that."

Drusilla blinked. She grabbed Buffy by the hair, yanking her head up harshly. Her vampire features came to the fore as she leaned in close to Buffy. "He's all I have left," she said.

Right. Cause Buffy had killed Angel. Probably not the best subject to bring up.

Drusilla scowled at her. "So greedy."

The vampire forced Buffy's head to the side and buried her fangs in her throat. Buffy cried out, physically pulling her neck away as best she could. Drusilla gripped her tight, though, and Buffy only succeeded in pinching the skin around where she was being bit. Buffy tried to kick her away, but her strength had long ago been depleted. She couldn't do more than struggle futilely as Drusilla began to drain her.

* * *

Spike hadn't given Dawn the full hour. After only fifteen minutes, he'd been out the door and on his way to Kennedy's position near the house. Patience had never been his strong point. Dawn had called after him that he needed a plan, and she was right. He did need a plan. So he came up with one. He knew Dru better than anyone, and he was sure to know how to get her away from Buffy.

He never was a cocky bastard. That was a trait he'd had to learn after becoming a vampire. After a time, his persona had become as natural as a second skin. It was something he could easily affix in place at a moment's notice. The soul had made it more difficult. It had ripped his confidence apart, struck at all his vulnerability, and rendered him incapable of assuming his familiar mask.

Well, that had been when he'd _first_ gotten his soul. Now, his devil-may-care attitude had regained its place in his arsenal. He had to utilize it this time. No. It wasn't something he _used_. It was something he fell into, surrendering to the promise of freedom it had once granted him. Spike let it use him.

He lit a cigarette while approaching the cottage. Once at the door, he didn't knock. Instead, he threw the door open and strolled in, confident that there would be no barrier.

There wasn't.

He stood in the middle of the den, axe leaning against his shoulder. The backdoor was probably through the kitchen. Before he could move in that direction, a young man came down the stairs.

"Who are you? Why are you here?" he asked.

Spike exhaled smoke while appraising the resident. This must be the warlock, Lance. Looked like a scrap of a meal. Drusilla must've done a number on the kid.

"Name's Spike," Spike answered. Lance stopped once he reached the landing. He looked confused. "Drusilla's expecting me."

Lance frowned. "No, no, no! No, your clock is off! This is - "

Spike stepped towards him, coming within a few inches of the boy. Lance was taller than him, but that didn't prevent Spike from staring him down.

"Only thing 'off' is your nuttery. Now go get the lady of the house. Tell her I'm here." Better to confront Drusilla away from Buffy. That way Buffy couldn't be used as a hostage.

Lance shrunk back, obviously intimidated by Spike's cavalier attitude. He scrunched his brow. He looked about to protest again, but he clamped his mouth shut. With a nod, he disappeared towards the back of the house.

Spike turned back to the den. Old lady magazines lay on the cozy coffee table along with a book on cats. Spike casually picked up the book and started flipping through photos of tabbies and maine coons.

He felt it then like a ball of pure panic sitting in his stomach. He dropped the book. Buffy was dying. The claim cried out as his mate faded away. He couldn't wait. Drusilla was doing it now, and he needed to stop her.

Without waiting for Lance to return, Spike ran in the direction he'd left. A screen door led out to the backyard. Lance stood in front of an aluminum garden shed.

Spike crossed the distance. He pushed Lance aside over his protests and yanked open the shed door. Inside, at the far end, Drusilla whirled around in surprise. Her lips were bloody, and she was still in her demon face. Buffy hung from some chains, barely conscious.

Spike took a deep breath, careful in his approach. He put down the axe. Dru could easily end things if he wasn't careful.

"Drusilla," Spike said in a measured voice. "Thought I felt you."

"Spike!" Drusilla smiled. "Now you've ruined your surprise! Bad luck to see the bride so early."

"What I can't figure," Spike said while sauntering towards her. "Is why you didn't just _tell_me you were here instead of playing all these silly games of yours, pet."

Dru's expression soured. She looked at Buffy. "You were busy."

"I always have time for you, ducks." Spike was within hand's reach of her. He leaned even closer. "If you'd asked, we could've done her together. Make our own new family, yeah?"

Drusilla nodded. "Always knew me best, my love."

"Course I do. Darla's gone. Angel's dust. We're all that's left, aren't we?" He reached a hand out to brush through her hair. "Time to start our own family." He looked at Buffy. "I get it."

"Have a taste, Spike." Dru urged him on. "When I turn her, we'll be a part of something again."

Buffy's bloodstained neck was offered to him. Spike wasn't even tempted.

This is what Buffy had faced, isn't it? This dead certainty that the past was over. That he was the one she wanted to be with. Even after having tromped through his brain - and what a nightmare that must have been. She hadn't wavered. When it came down to it, she'd chosen him.

Whose hesitation had it been this past month? His or hers? Was he the one who had been creating the distance? Why? Cause he hadn't faced this moment that made everything so very simple.

He loved Buffy. What Dru was offering him...it didn't interest him at all. His old family - Angelus, Drusilla, Darla - they were gone. He'd been cut off from them, but he'd gotten something better. Buffy had taken their place, and...how was this a problem? What was he worrying about?

Spike looked at Drusilla. He put a hand to her shoulder, leading her away from Buffy. He smiled at her. "You won't be alone anymore, pet."

She smiled back at him, bouncing on her toes as she waited for him to finish draining Buffy. Her eyes widened in surprise as Spike drew his stake and plunged it into her heart. She reached her hand out.

"Spike," she cried as she crumpled to dust.

He didn't hesitate.

"Buffy, love," he said as he turned to her. He patted her cheek, trying to get her to wake up. "Come on, pet. I got you."

She didn't rouse. Spike drew his cellphone and sent the all clear to Kennedy's team.

"You!" Spike called.

Behind him at the entrance to the shed, Lance froze.

"Need a key for these chains," Spike said without looking behind him.

"She's gone," Lance said softly.

"No use dwelling. _Key_."

Lance had curled up beside the body of the older woman. Well, that was a wash. Spike turned back to Buffy. He fetched up his axe.

"Hang on, Buffy," Spike said as he swung at the chains.

* * *

Buffy saw blood when she woke up. Well, a blood bag that was connected to an IV at her arm. Not the first time she'd seen that, and it was a definite improvement over the shed of death and decay she'd previously been in.

She turned her head to the side, mindful of the thick bandage at her neck. Spike sat beside her. Now, _that_was a pleasant surprise.

He leaned forward as her eyes opened. "Buffy. How do you feel, love?"

Her throat felt scratchy from being asleep too long. "Drusilla?" she asked.

"Gone."

Simple enough. She didn't ask for him to elaborate more. She knew what that meant.

She spotted a glass of water on the bedside table and nodded towards it. "Water?"

Spike fetched it and handed it to her, holding the glass steady as she drank through the straw. The cool liquid soothed her throat.

She lay back when she was finished. "Thanks."

Spike nodded as he put the glass back. "Buffy, I - "

"You're talking to me," she interrupted.

Spike looked chagrined. He sighed. "Yeah."

"It took a near-death experience on my part to make that happen?" She couldn't keep the bitterness out of her voice.

"No. Well, yes, I suppose. But not like you think." He sighed. "I was on the wrong side of things."

"Huh?"

"While I was busy playing the damsel, you became more and more certain that _I_was what you wanted, yeah? So by the end, we're claimed and you're all rarin' to go, except..."

"Except you weren't."

"I wasn't sure," he corrected her. "So much had happened. I didn't know what was what. And then you caught onto that and started using the kid gloves which made _me_ think you weren't as certain so _I_drew away more and - "

"Okay, I get that."

Spike met her eyes. "You being captured shocked me out of it, yeah. But it wasn't until Drusilla was rambling on about us being together again that I_knew_...there's no temptation there. It wasn't an agonizing decision, you know? I wanted you. Just you, and Drusilla could go to hell. Well, she did go to hell. And I'm fine with that."

Buffy smiled, thinking about Angel. "Yeah, I know how weird _that_feels."

"But weird in a good way." He grabbed her hand. "Things are gonna be better now, Buffy."

She squeezed his hand in return. "I'm getting that."


	15. Epilogue

Spike looked around the unfamiliar living room. Well, only somewhat unfamiliar. The room, itself, he'd never been in. However, he recognized a lot of the tiny knick knacks and furniture. When he turned, he saw a young blonde girl sitting on the southwestern patterned sofa.

"Let me guess: this one is yours," Spike said as he sat down next to her. "How old are you?"

Buffy crossed her arms in a pout. "This is my old house in LA." She looked at her open-toed flip flops. "I think I'm five."

Spike snorted in amusement.

"Hey, I can't control what my dreams do all the time," she said.

It would have been a strange experience to have grown-up Buffy's words coming from child Buffy's mouth and voice. However, since they'd started the dream-sharing in earnest, Spike had been in a lot stranger situations. There'd been the whole thing with the dogs, for one.

Finding a remote on the sofa arm beside him, Spike fetched it up and tried to turn on the TV. Only static played.

"Couldn't you at least make the TV work?"

"Sorry, Mr. I'm So In Control Of My Dreams. Why haven't I ever seen you as a kid?"

He shrugged. "Maybe there's an expiration date on kid dreams. If so, I'm well past it."

"Shame."

Spike let that go without comment. In the corner of his mind, he registered a dark shadow crossing the window behind the TV. Buffy began to shiver beside him.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

Buffy shook her head, her pigtails bobbing back and forth. She scooted to the edge of the couch as she warily watched the entrance to the den. An eerie calm had fallen over the scene. "I think this is a nightmare."

Sure enough, Angelus came around the corner, dragging the bleeding body of Buffy's mother behind him. He snarled as he approached Buffy. She fell back against the sofa and screamed.

Spike stood and turned. Buffy was at the mercy of the nightmare but he, as an interloper, had more control. He yelled, "Buffy, wake up!"

When Spike awoke, Buffy was in his arms. Not to surprising given that that's how they'd fallen asleep. Nonetheless, it was a comfort after such a dream. He could sense her sharp intake of breath that signaled her own awakening. She craned her neck up to see him.

"Sorry," she grimaced.

"No need to be, love." He brushed her hair back from her face. "Not like you don't have a good reason for having nightmares."

Buffy sighed and laid her head back on his shoulder. "I guess. Still. Makes it hard to do that 'full night's sleep' thing."

Spike pulled her closer. "We can handle it."

* * *

"Are you sure you still want the details?" Dawn asked, pausing with her hand on the manila folder.

Buffy swirled her ice around her mojito. "Yeah," she said. "I mean, crisis over and all. Things have been so much better between me and Spike. But you did go through all the trouble of researching."

"Damn right I did," Dawn said.

Their nightly visits to Felipe had been scaled back to a once-a-week deal as the Drusilla Incident - as Dawn referred to it - had reunited Buffy and Spike. No need for Buffy to avoid being alone with him anymore.

Still, Dawn had brought the research she'd found about the claim. It couldn't hurt to have more information about it.

Dawn opened the folder, scanning through the Xeroxed pages. "Well, it was hard to find much of anything. There's no real precedent for a human-vampire claim originating during a mind trip, so I can't conclusively say that the lack of a physical claim is of any importance. However, I did find some accounts of claims being 'renewed' every few years, so there is a precedent for a reclaiming, I guess."

"Huh? 'Renewed'?"

"Well, like, if a claimed couple has been together for a while and are feeling a bit in a rut, they do the claiming ritual again. Kinda like renewing wedding vows. Just with biting and blood and stuff."

"Oh." Buffy sat back. "That makes sense."

"I mean, I'm not _encouraging_you to get all bitey with Spike. I'm just sayin'."

Buffy nodded. "I get what you're saying."

Their usual waiter came with their food, and Dawn put away the folder. Buffy was left with the idea of a reclaiming bouncing around in her head. Maybe that's what she and Spike needed to lend some substance to their bond.

This sort of stuff took time.

* * *

"Sherrie, my hair stylist, broke up with her boyfriend of five years," Buffy said while situating a shirt on the hanger.

Spike raised an eyebrow. "Come again?"

"I was just thinking. We're never gonna be able to break up, are we?"

Spike's hands paused in the middle of balling two socks together. If he had breath, he would have been holding it.

"That bother you?" he asked.

Buffy let the hangered shirt fall onto the bed, reaching into the laundry basket for the next article of clothing to be folded. She ended up with a pair of panties wadded up in her hand.

"It's kinda scary. Relationships and me have never been so much with the long-term, you know?"

"You think we rushed into it?" Spike started carefully folding a pair of Buffy's dress pants.

Buffy shrugged. "I think we did what was best at the time. I'm happy now. But fifty years in the future? How do I know that I'm gonna be happy then?"

"Dru and I were happy," Spike said, trying to sound cavalier. "Were for over a hundred years."

"And look how well _that_turned out," Buffy said.

Spike bristled. "We're completely different than Dru and me were, pet."

"How so?"

Spike sighed. The laundry basket was empty. He looked over at Buffy, meeting her eyes for the first time since the conversation had started.

"Cause," he said. "You kept me. Drusilla never did." He grabbed the basket up to put it back in its spot in the corner. "Makes me not worry too much about our future."

Buffy looked down, fussing with the fold of a dress shirt. "Drusilla _was_crazy not to claim you."

Spike grabbed Buffy by the arms, twirling her toward him. He caught her lips in a wild kiss and backed her to the bed.

As the mattress hit the back of her knees, Buffy folded down on top of the neatly folded clothes. She protested. "We're gonna mess the laundry up."

Spike crawled on top of her, raining kisses up her neck. "Sod the fucking clothes."

* * *

"Have I mentioned that I hate the steering wheel being on the right side?" Buffy took a turn without slowing down.

Spike braced himself against the window. "I could've driven..."

"No way. You'd insist on playing your music."

They were heading into town for a couple days for a shopping trip. Buffy had it in her head that Spike needed a whole new wardrobe. He'd tried to tell her that he was perfectly content with just a few shirts and some jeans, but she'd gotten that excited gleam in her eye about the outing. He couldn't deny her that.

Spike did decide to take advantage of the long drive they had ahead of them, though, to broach a subject that Buffy had been trying to avoid all day.

"So, you wanna talk about that dream last night?"

Buffy fell silent. The two of them had shared a host of dreams, ranging from erotic to bizarre to nightmares. Last night, however, had been a cavalcade of torture, death, and pain featuring Drusilla and Angel. Spike had almost thought it was his dream at first, but the small details showed that it was Buffy's. Drusilla was impersonal, filtered through Buffy's viewpoint of her. Angel had been infatuated with Buffy, giving little attention to Spike.

Their usual trick of waking themselves up at the start of a nightmare hadn't worked. They'd been stuck in the labyrinth of despair.

And Buffy had steadfastly refused to talk about it. Well, until now.

"I don't know what to say," Buffy admitted.

"You still think about Angel a lot?"

"Kinda hard not to after everything that's happened, isn't it?" Buffy got defensive. "I mean, it's not like he doesn't show up in your dreams, either, so I don't know what's the big deal about him making an appearance in mine."

"Difference is, in my dreams Angel doesn't pin my hands to the wall with a knife and rape me."

Buffy's knuckles were white. "Did he ever...? In real life, did he...?"

Spike frowned. "Why are you asking?"

The brakes screeched as Buffy brought the car to a sudden halt. Spike put his hand to the dash to steady himself. As soon as they'd stopped, Buffy turned to Spike, her face bright red.

"He tortured you, Spike. This man that I had given my entire adolescence to _brutally_ tortured you. I feel sick thinking about it." Her face contorted. "All the times I let him hold me, I let him comfort me...all those times..." Buffy shook her head. "I'd rationalized _so_much about him when I was younger. Since I didn't know any of his victims, I could let myself believe in the fantasy that he was a good man. I deluded myself. Did until...what he did to you.

"But it's not the first time he did that to you, isn't it? You've known all this time the extent of what he is, and I never..." Her hands gestured, but she struggled to find the right words. Spike decided to take things up from there.

"What can I tell you, Buffy? Yeah, I knew all about Angel. Soul or not, the bloke gets his jollies from the hurt. Soul just put a damper on it. Working for Wolfram & Hart, though, wore it down. Brought out his old self." He reached over and grabbed one of her hands. "None of it's your fault, love."

"Isn't it? Dawn knew immediately that something was fishy about Angel's story. Me? I just moped about, doing nothing. I..."

"_Saved me_." Spike said. "You saved me. Brought me back. Rallied the whole Slayer outfit to help you do so. Risked everything. For me." He sought her eyes, but she kept them averted. "You have no blame in this, Buffy."

She exhaled a shaky breath, brushing away at the tears that were forming. "I've just, for so long, I've ignored who Angel really is." She looked up at him. "I didn't want to know. Now I do. I want to know everything about him. I don't want to run from the truth anymore, Spike."

Spike considered his answer. "What about me?"

Buffy blinked. "What about you?"

"You think I don't have a past with buckets of blood in it? You want to know about your former now that he's gone. When do you think you'll be able to stomach hearing about my dark deeds?"

Buffy looked out the front window. The headlights faded into the distance. Outside was pitch dark.

When she finally spoke, her voice was soft. "Angel was cursed against his will with a soul. When he lost it, he wanted nothing more than to keep it lost. He was...a monster." She looked at him again. "You're not like him, Spike. Your soul is earned. I don't feel like I'm deceiving myself in believing that you're a good person."

Spike raised an eyebrow. He almost interjected, but Buffy raised a hand to cut him off.

She continued, "Angel didn't like to tell me stories of his past. The few times I asked, he was reluctant. You wouldn't be, and that makes you the better man. You'd sit here now and rattle off all the people you'd killed - well, all that you remembered. Marvin's girlfriend, Linh, or Robin's mother or, I don't know, whoever else you've killed. If that's something you feel you need to do to make peace with yourself, I'm happy to be there for you. I know who you are, though, Spike, so much more than I ever knew Angel. Years ago, when you first fell in love with me, I was already convinced you were a monster. What I needed to learn was that you're much, much more than that."

Her thumb skirted over his knuckle. "What _I _need is to know about Angel."

Spike nodded. His throat was tight, humbled by what Buffy was telling him. Any response he could come up with felt insufficient. Instead, he simply acquiesced. "Then I'll tell you about Angel."

* * *

"Mine," Spike whispered into the curve of Buffy's neck, lips brushing against the blood pooling to the surface from his fangs' marks.

Buffy gasped. "Yours."

When Spike raised his head, Buffy's eyes were half-closed in an expression of ecstasy. Her most beautiful state for Spike. If he could keep her looking like that as much as unhumanly possible during their immortal life, he would have no worries.

With a speed that belied her sated posture, Buffy lunged up, clamping down on Spike's neck with blunt teeth. Using her slayer strength, she didn't pause until she'd broken skin and torn through the vein.

Spike's turn to gasp. His hand tangled in her hair.

"Mine," Buffy said around a mouthful of his flesh and blood.

"Always yours," he said.

When Buffy released him, she allowed her body to fall back against the pillow. His blood spattered across her lips along with a satisfied smile. Spike couldn't keep from leaning forward to lick the blood from her mouth.

"Anybody ever tell you vampires that this whole blood thing is kinda gross?" Buffy asked.

Spike rolled off her to the side, propping himself up on an elbow. She stretched her arms overhead, letting them rest on the pillow beside her head. Doing so stretched her breasts against her ribs and elongated her torso. Spike's eyes were pulled to watch her body shift.

"You seemed to get off on it," he said absently, eying the spot where the sheet hit her hip right above her vagina. Tantalizing glimpses of flesh that never failed to excite him.

"Not hard for you to get me off," Buffy commented.

Spike realized that Buffy was watching him, and he brought his own attention to her face. She studied him as if searching for something.

"What?" he asked.

Her eyes flickered. "We're forever now."

It wasn't a question or a protest. It was a simple statement of truth. Her voice carried acceptance and contentment with it.

Spike brought a hand to her cheek, running a knuckle down to her chin. "Suits me fine."

Buffy smiled. "Me, too."

Their moments of truths had come and gone, dusted along with their former lovers - their former lives. In its place, they'd found the security of each other and the strength they shared together. Spike could hardly remember the insecurity he'd felt at the start of this whole thing. It was so distant as to be nonexistent. Now, he _knew_that what he had with Buffy was right. Was strong and secure. He was cast off by vampire society, by his former kin, by the demon world entirely. None of that mattered, though, because he was with Buffy. He was hers.

He was kept.


End file.
